Peter’s Weston Market to close after nearly 50 years

Peter”™s Weston Market, an independently owned supermarket and a staple of the Weston business community for nearly a half-century, has announced it is closing at the end of the month.

Founded in 1972 and based at 190 Weston Road, Peter”™s gained a reputation for its fresh-made sandwiches and soups. Jim Magee, owner of the family-run business, stated that shifting consumer trends away from in-store shopping coupled with the havoc created by the Covid-19 pandemic ultimately proved fatal for the store.

“Retailers, especially small businesses, have been struggling for the last 15 years and ours is no exception,” said Magee on the Peter”™s Weston Market Facebook page. “Over the past five years our sales have declined 10% annually though expenses have increased. In addition, the complexities and declining in-store sales due to Covid-19 have dramatically hurt us. Because of all of this, remaining in business is no longer sustainable.”

Last April, a GoFundMe campaign was launched that brought a temporary infusion of approximately $121,000 into the business, which Magee described as “generous and overwhelming, allowing us to keep employees employed and continue to serve the community we love, including our regular donations to the Weston Food Pantry.”

Magee”™s Facebook post did not acknowledge that MFV Enterprises, the parent company of Peter”™s, was served last March with an eviction notice by its landlord, Weston Shopping Associates LLC, which said the company had not paid rent since August 2019.

The companies reached at out-of-court agreement enabling the supermarket to remain in place through Jan. 31, 2021, as long as it made monthly rent payments of approximately $37,400.