East Ridge Center, East Ridge, Tennessee (Chattanooga: 2015, buying, tenants)

[Carolina Knight]

East Ridge Center is a retail center located at the northeast quadrant of Ringgold Road and Camp Jordan Parkway in the City of East Ridge in Hamilton County, Tennessee. It opened circa 1974.

Initial tenants at East Ridge Center included supermarket Red Food, 6723 Ringgold Road, Chattanooga, Tennesse 37412-4229; drugstore Revco, 6721 Ringgold Road, Chattanooga, Tennessee 37412-4229; and an unidentified department store, 6725 Ringgold Road, Chattanooga, Tennessee 37412-4229. Revco is now dollar store Family Dollar #23484. The department store is now East Ridge Flea Market.

Red Food was acquired by BI-LO in 1993. I think Red Food's East Ridge Center store became BI-LO #314 initially. Ahold, BI-LO's then-parent company, acquired Bruno's in 2001, merged Bruno's into BI-LO, and BI-LO renumbered its stores to prevent duplication with Bruno's store numbers. The East Ridge Center store became BI-LO #614. BI-LO #614 became BI-LO #5614 in 2012 when BI-LO acquired Winn-Dixie and renumbered its stores into the 5### range.

BI-LO #5614 was among twenty-nine BI-LO stores K-VA-T Food Stores acquired from BI-LO's parent company Southeastern Grocers in 2015. K-VA-T Food Stores, parent company of Food City, converted the BI-LO stores to Food City. BI-LO #5614 became Food City #714.

Food City #714 closed Monday, 2 April. Food City is reported to open a replacement store nearby south of the Georgia state line.

Further reading:

• Flessner, Dave, and Shirk, Allison. "Food City closes East Ridge store but will build new location nearby in North Georgia." Chattanooga Times Free Press. 24 March 2018.
• Pare, Mike. "Food City to buy, upgrade local Bi-Lo stores with gas stations, sharper pricing." Chattanooga Times Free Press. 24 July 2015.