Silver Spring Co-Op Location Closes Nov. 1

The Silver Spring location of the TPSS (which stands for Takoma Park Silver Spring) Co-Op will close on Nov. 1, the co-op's board announced last week, citing monthly losses more than half of the time since the location opened in 2001, according to a message posted on its website and Facebook page and mailed to co-op members.

"The Silver Spring store [at 8309 Grubb Rd.] opened in the fall of 2001. While the goals of TPSS are much broader than just making a profit, the Silver Spring store needed to at least break even. Since it opened in 2001, it has experienced 51 months of positive net income and 89 months of losses. In recent years, the Silver Spring store has been consistently losing money, and while management has expended much time and effort to try to turn that around, as well as bringing in additional outside expertise, we have not been successful."

The message continued: "In this very competitive grocery market, if we continue to keep the store open, we expose the entire organization to unacceptable financial risk. To ensure the financial stability of our Co-op as a whole, after much deliberation, the Board decided we must close the Silver Spring store."

For the co-op's Silver Spring employees, the co-op will offer either jobs at the co-op's Takoma Park location (201 Ethan Allen Ave.) or severance pay, the message added.

The co-op, incorporated in 1980, is a cooperatively owned natural food store. It first opened as a vegetarian grocery store on Sligo Avenue in Takoma Park in 1981. In February 1998, it moved to Ethan Allen Avenue. The Silver Spring location opened on Grubb Road in October 2001, according to the co-op's Facebook page.

Some Silver Spring residents are looking to form a new co-op in Silver Spring, according to a blog post on Silver Spring Patch. The Facebook page for the New Silver Spring Co-op was created on Thursday afternoon, Oct. 17, and already had 27 "likes" by Monday afternoon.

If you've been a customer of the Silver Spring location of the TPSS Co-Op, will you travel to the Takoma Park location starting in November or stay local and shop at other stores in Silver Spring? Tell us in the comments.