Braker Village Randalls grocery store to close in February, dozens of workers to be cut

Randalls grocery store on Research Boulevard and Braker Lane will be closing in February, and parent company Albertsons is cutting dozens of employees at the location, according to a WARN letter sent to the Texas Workforce Commission.

The store, which is located on 10900 Research Blvd in Austin, will close “on or about” February 10, with the pharmacy closing at an undisclosed earlier date, according to the WARN notice, short for Worker Adjustment and Retraining Notification Act.

In the notice, the company also said it would be laying off as many as 76 employees as part of the closure. Employers are federally mandated to give local governments notice in the event of major layoffs under the act. The notice said the company anticipated transferring many store associates to other Randalls in the area.

Outside of the Research Boulevard location, Randalls has six other stores in Austin, as well as stores in Cedar Park, Round Rock, Lakeway, Georgetown, Leander and West Lake Hills.

The store closure comes as grocery store operator Kroger seeks to buy rival Albertsons, the parent company of Randalls, for $24.6 billion in a deal first announced in October 2022. The proposed megamerger, which the companies aim to close early this year, has brought pushback from state attorney generals and the federal government.

A representative for Randalls said in a statement to the American-Statesman that the Randalls closure was not related to the merger, and instead said the company closes "underperforming" stores at times. In the statement, the representative said Randalls remains committed to Austin and no other stores are expected to close.

"In such a competitive environment, our company must sometimes make the tough decision to close an underperforming store so that we can reinvest in our remaining stores in the marketplace," the statement said.

The Randalls set to close is located near several competitors in the grocery industry. Within a short distance is a Target, Sprouts Farmers Market and Trader Joe's.

Regulators are still deciding if the two corporations will be allowed to continue with the megamerger. Kroger is already the biggest U.S. supermarket operator with over 2,700 stores nationwide, under names including Kroger, Ralphs, Harris Teeter, Fred Meyer and King Soopers. Albertsons, which is the second-largest grocery store chain, has over 2,200 stores, with stores including Albertsons, Randalls, Tom Thumb, Safeway and Vons.

The companies have said they will close certain stores if the merger goes through and in September also announced plans to sell hundreds of additional locations to C&S Wholesale Grocers, Piggly Wiggly’s parent company. Between Texas and Lousiana, 28 Albertsons company stores were expected to be sold, as of the September Kroger announcement.

This article originally appeared on Austin American-Statesman: Randalls grocery store in North Austin to close in February