Prisco’s Family Market on Aurora’s West Side, which has been closed because of storm damage since August, is set to reopen on Oct. 30.
The longtime, locally-owned grocery store made the announcement Thursday afternoon on its Facebook page, where it said reopening-day hours would be from 10 a.m. to 8 p.m.
“We appreciate everyone’s patience and support while we work hard to get back open!,” the grocery store’s Facebook post said.
Store owner Andy Guzauskas told The Beacon-News on Friday that the reopening process has been long, hard and a challenge. Staff have been working nearly every day to clean and get the store ready, and they’re all excited to get back to serving the community, he said.
“I just can’t wait to be back at it,” Guzauskas said.
Prisco’s customers may find the store a bit different than it was before it closed down. The grocery store used the opportunity to make some changes to the layout and “freshen up” before the holidays, he said, things that were hard to do when the store was open.
The store was closed after the roof of an addition, put on the building when it was purchased in 1992, collapsed during storms on the evening of Aug. 18, according to Guzauskas. He said the collapsing roof pushed out the back wall into the neighbor’s yard and sent water from the storm rushing through the building.
That evening’s storms were the last of a series that rolled through Aurora over several days, leaving widespread damage and power outages across the region.
Staff have been allowed in the store the whole time, Guzauskas said, but the city didn’t want the general public in the building in case they went into the damaged addition.
Now, that area has been “secured” from the general public, with the next step being to actually rebuild it, but that will take eight to 12 months, he said.
That area wasn’t a place the general public went to begin with, as it was storage and office space, according to Guzauskas. He said that area being unusable won’t have an impact to operations — the store’s back area is just a little bit more cramped.
After the store was forced to close, much of its stock like produce and meats would only be good for several more days, so it donated nearly all of it to three local food pantries, Guzauskas said.
“I was really proud of the fact that we were able to do something with it rather than fill landfills,” he said.
When asked how much food in total was donated, Guzauskas said it was “truckloads.” To be more specific, the food pantries each made three or four trips, he said.
And now, Guzauskas is excited to see his customers again. Through the Facebook post announcing the store’s reopening, which had 230 comments as of Friday afternoon, he was able to see people’s joy in being able to come back, he said, which has been a big stress relief.
“They’re ready to see us,” he said. “We’re ready to see them.”
rsmith@chicagotribune.com