The doors to Salem’s Market are closed, at least for now, and its once-bustling parking lot is now nearly empty. Since the Centre Avenue grocer closed suddenly this weekend, a sign on the glass urges customers to visit Salem’s Strip District location, as cars drive past the entrance and pull away.
The store’s owners say they are pausing operations while figuring out a new business plan for the store. Still, the closure was a setback for a store that opened just a year ago, with high hopes that it would provide the Hill District with a long-needed source of groceries. And as late as Friday, few customers had seen it coming.
“It hasn't even been open for a year. That is a shame,” said Hill District resident Valerie Hawkins, just after being told the store was about to be shuttered. She described Salem’s as a “community store,” and said people from many different cultures and from around the neighborhood often shopped there.
Not everyone felt the loss so keenly. Montresa Holden said she goes to Salem’s sometimes, but picks up most of her food in the Strip District or in other markets outside the Hill.
“I'm not even going to lie to you. I forget the store is here sometimes,” she said. “Just because we haven't had one here in so long.”
Residents may not feel the impact immediately. But University of Pittsburgh professor Tamara Dubowitz said the closing would have effects on the surrounding community. Having a grocery nearby can improve neighborhood satisfaction, as well as the area’s food security – a measurement of how readily accessible food is. Losing a store, meanwhile, could hurt Hill District residents by canceling those benefits out.
“I think that the closing of Salem's is going to hit the neighborhood in a not-so-great way,” she said.
‘You can't charge too much for stuff’
Dubowitz was the principal investigator for the Pittsburgh Hill-Homewood Research on Neighborhood Change and Health study, a local project that studied food access in the Hill several years ago. At that time, a Shop n’ Save — which also opened in 2013 with considerable optimism — operated a store where Salem's now stands.
But the Shop n’ Save closed five years ago. Dubowitz said the study found that while Hill residents used the store often, they treated it more like a convenience store than their primary grocery-shopping location.
The stores were hailed as an effort to address the Hill’s status as a “food desert,” where access to healthy fresh food is limited. But Dubowitz said that even if a store is easy to get to, neighbors don't always automatically choose it. Prices, routine and item selection are factors too, and many residents had long before gotten used to shopping outside the neighborhood, particularly at the South Side Giant Eagle.
“If a supermarket opened down the street,” she said, “it would have to sort of offer something above and beyond. In order for me to change my routine, it would have to offer something that spoke to me.”
Zinna Scott, acting executive director of the Pittsburgh Food Policy Council, said costs and item selection may have added to Salem’s challenges. For one thing, Salem’s was a halal grocer, where meat was prepared according to Islamic principles that bar pork.
That helped the store appeal to customers like Mehtap Acay, who said she regularly drove to the store from Upper St. Clair.
“It’s a good store to find this traditional food, halal food, which I really need,” she said. “It's a very rare find in other stores. …It's very in the middle of everything, so it's easy to reach.”
But Scott — and some social-media posters reacting to the closure last week — said the absence of pork meant some customers had to shop elsewhere anyway.
Scott said that Salem’s faced other issues as well: “Their prices were much higher than Giant Eagle’s,” she said. “And right now the economy is hurting. You can't charge too much for stuff.”
Scott thinks a smaller full-service grocery store that rents out unused space in the building might have more success. And local officials say they will help Salem's return in some form — perhaps one with a reduced footprint.
‘We're not walking away’
Salem’s did not respond to calls for comment on this story, but in a statement last week, store leadership said the closure was merely temporary, while management reassesses how to “best serve the community.”
City Council President Dan Lavelle said at an Urban Redevelopment Authority meeting last week that the store couldn’t bring in enough income to meet expenses in a large-size building. He said the URA plans to still work with ownership to “potentially rightsize” the store, and the URA itself said that it was “not the right time for a full-service grocery store,” Lavelle pledged not to abandon the site.
“We're not walking away, and we're not giving up,” he said.
Public officials have been supportive of the grocery from the outset.
The URA, which previously owned the plaza where Salem’s is located, sold the building to Salem's in 2023. The agency says Salem’s received $550,000 in Community Development Block Grant funding, a $12,000 Avenues of Hope Storefront Facade grant and a $200,000 Avenues of Hope American Rescue Plan Act grant. The URA approved a $1.37 million Pittsburgh Business Fund loan to the store in 2023, and the store also received a $200,000 federal grant under the USDA’s Healthy Food Financing Initiative.
Salem’s was chosen through a community process coordinated by Lavelle and the Hill Community Development Corporation. Four grocers presented their proposals at a meeting in September 2021. Salem’s received the highest feedback scores from Hill District residents whop participated, and Dubowitz praised the community process overall.
URA chair Kyle Chintalapalli said the authority had already paused repayments on the loans that they’d made to Salem’s, essentially like a forbearance, and will continue to pause them while the store sorts things out.
Customers like Valerie Hawkins hope there is an answer for the store — and for the Hill District — soon.
“I hope they figure it out. I hope they get the help to figure it out, and the resources,” she said. “The community needs something that we can keep.”
