LYNN — The shelves at Ernie’s Harvest Time, which had been stocked with food for the past 67 years, stood empty on Saturday as the grocery store held one last sale before it closed its doors forever.
“It’s a sad day,” said employee Anne Ward, who has worked at the store since 1987.
The Boston Street store, which many in Lynn considered an institution, accepted a buyout this summer to make room for an undisclosed pharmacy, as did several other businesses nearby.
On Saturday, co-owners and brothers Ernie Jr. and Joe Fratangelo bustled back and forth through the crowded store as longtime customers and former employees hugged them and lamented the closing.
“This place is exceptional,” said Grace Nwago, wiping away tears with one hand and holding a basket of clearance items in the other. ” ”¦ This is the only place I know. They are like family to me.”
Ernie Fratangelo Jr. said his family had decided to sell the store even before the offer from a pharmacy came up this year.
Since the recession hit in 2008, food prices kept rising – tough for a store that prides itself on selling food at the cheapest price possible, said Joe Fratangelo.
“We’ve been very fair to the people, just trying to make a couple of pennies on the dollar,” he said. “But with everything going up, it’s hard to do now.”
Even still, Saturday’s shuttering was tough for the brothers, who took over the store from their father, Ernie Fratangelo.
“I’ve gone through a lot of Kleenex,” Ernie Fratangelo Jr. said, explaining the sale comes with mixed emotions.
“The deal is a great deal for me and my family, but this is the best job we’ll ever have,” he said.
It was the best job many of Ernie’s 20-some employees said they’d ever had too. While some found jobs at nearby Rolly’s Tavern and other stores, Ward, the store’s longest-serving employee, said she won’t bother getting another job.
“I wouldn’t find a better place to work than here. I wouldn’t even try,” she said.
Many customers, like Angelo Losanno, who has shopped at Ernie’s for 30 years, said they won’t find a better place to shop either.
“I’m going to walk out of here, and I have lumps in my throat,” the Lynner said as he stocked up on chicken cutlets – about 1 pound for $2.00
Losanno lamented the fact that so many local businesses have closed in the Boston Street area: across the street from Ernie’s the Lynn location of supermarket chain Johnnie’s Foodmaster’s closed at the end of November.
“First Foodmaster’s, then this, and then God knows what,” he said.
Joe Fratangelo said the brothers plan to sit back and relax for awhile – 80-hour work weeks will do that to you – but that they’re not ruling out the possibility of opening up another store in the future.
Like their father before them, who at 89 lives in a nursing home, the store became a labor of love, Ernie Fratangelo Jr. said.
“This wasn’t work. It was a party,” he said.
Amber Parcher can be reached at [email protected].
