Grand Mart International Food is a Korean supermarket chain primarily based in the Washington, D.C. metropolitan area, with locations in North Carolina and Georgia. It is owned by Annandale, Virginia-based Man Min Corporation, a family company. It was founded in 2002 by David Min Sik Kang, a Korean-American entrepreneur who originally owned small Korean grocery stores in Washington, D.C..
Grand Mart provides a wide selection of Korean and East Asian groceries and fresh produce. Depending on the location of the store, it also offers varying amounts of Asian, Latino, African and traditional North American groceries. Some stores advertise in the Spanish language media as "Mercado Grande," and have signs in English, Spanish and Korean. Nevertheless, all Grand Mart supermarkets retain a strong Korean flavor, which include in-store Korean bakeries and video rental shops which rent out DVDs of television shows from South Korea.
Locations
Grand Mart has stores in Virginia, Maryland, Washington, D.C., North Carolina, and Georgia, most of which are targeted primarily toward the Korean American community, which is concentrated heavily in Fairfax and Montgomery County. The newest store in the Washington area opened in Frederick in Frederick County in 2013. In mid-2008, Grand Mart closed its Security Square Mall location, the only store it had in the Baltimore area. In October 2014, Grand Mart closed its Frederick location.
In 2013, the Grand Mart locations in Alexandria and Falls Church, Virginia, were sold to Green Paradise Enterprises, which is operating the stores under the name New Grand Mart.
Grand Mart is also expanding outside of the Washington area including more locations in Georgia and North Carolina, as well as planned stores in Texas and New York. In the Chicago market it purchased eight former Cub Foods locations. However, the Grand Mart format was not successful in the Chicago area, and the four stores that were opened (Bedford Park, Chicago, Melrose Park and Niles) subsequently closed. After the closure of the Chicago area Grand Mart stores, plans for downstate independent grocer Niemann Foods to expand into the Chicago market by acquiring several of the shuttered Grand Mart stores fell through. The Chicago location (at North and Cicero Avenues) is now a Food 4 Less store while the Bedford Park location is now an Art Van Furniture. The Melrose Park location later became a Meijer (which closed on June 17, 2017) and the Niles location is now a Fresh Farms Market.
Washington, D.C.
- Washington
Georgia
Atlanta metropolitan area
- Morrow
- Smyrna
- Norcross
Maryland
- Gaithersburg
- Germantown (re-opened after a fire)
- Laurel
- Frederickâ€"Closed
North Carolina
- Greensboro
Virginia
- Richmond
- Alexandria (sold, now operating as New Grand Mart)
- Centreville â€" Closed
- Falls Church (sold, now operating as New Grand Mart)
- Sterling â€" Closed (was the first D.C.-area Grand Mart to open in a place without a large Korean population nearby)
- Virginia Beach
References
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