Empty anchor stores in Phoenix leave \u2018food desert\u2019 and no pharmacy<\/p>\n
Published 10:00 am Saturday, May 16, 2026<\/p>\n
Two large businesses at the north entrance to Phoenix have been vacant for months; contents of decades-old Ray\u2019s Market liquidated at auction last week<\/p>\n
Nearing six months since the January announcement that his city\u2019s only grocery store would close its doors, Phoenix Mayor Al Muelhoefer admitted recently that he\u2019s striking out when it comes to luring a new supermarket to his beloved town.<\/p>\n
Contents of the old Ray\u2019s Food Place at 735 North Main Street were liquidated May 7 by Michigan-based Grafe\u2019s auction company. The auctioneer listed the contents of the store in 354 separate lots, including everything from refrigeration units and shelves to cash registers and bakery displays via online auction<\/a> with a video posted to social media<\/a> showing the contents remaining inside the store.<\/p>\n Officially shuttered in late February<\/a>, the store was run for decades by Medford-based C&K Market Inc.<\/a>, which cited difficult realities facing local grocers as reason for the closure. The company closed its Ray\u2019s Food Place location in Drain about the same time.<\/p>\n Surveying the empty Ray\u2019s Food Place parking lot and an empty nearby former Rite-Aid store one recent afternoon, Muelhoefer shook his head as he looked toward an apartment complex being constructed just north of the empty grocery store.<\/p>\n Closure of Ray\u2019s, he noted, was more heavily felt by the community. Rite Aid \u2014 which \u201cat least provided some basic grocery items,\u201d the mayor said \u2014 closed in October before the loss of Ray\u2019s.<\/p>\n \u201cWe\u2019ve got people who don\u2019t drive, who were walking here to get their groceries, and now they have to get on the bus to go to Walmart or down to Ray\u2019s in Talent,\u201d Muelhoefer said, noting that housing being rebuilt following the 2020 Almeda Fire will inevitably boost the town\u2019s population, making the loss of a local market even more impactful.<\/p>\n \u201cWe have apartments going in nearby and we\u2019ll have people moving into Royal Oaks and Pacific Flats and then two more affordable housing complexes coming \u2026 in a town with no grocery store.\u201d<\/p>\n