Johnny's Food Centers Closing Kent Supermarket

KENT

Johnny's Food Centers is closing its 35-year-old East Hill supermarket, putting up to 23 people out of work.

The locally-based company said the site lacks space to expand the building and parking lot. Access to and from the parking lot has become difficult. The store also needs to have a deli and bakery section, the company said.

"This was a really painful decision," Norma Somers, Johnny's president and chief executive, said in a prepared release. Somers could not be reached for comment yesterday.

Johnny's has five other area locations and will reassign some East Hill employees to those stores. The East Hill store was the chain's second; the first was built in Des Moines, in 1945.