Hazelwood's Only Grocery Store Closing For Good

Pittsburgh Losing Dimperio's Market In January

POSTED: 11:51 am EST December 23, 2008
UPDATED: 9:47 pm EST December 23, 2008

PITTSBURGH -- A jump in crime is causing a grocery store in Pittsburgh's Hazelwood neighborhood to close after 80 years.

Dimperio's Market on Second Avenue will close for good next month. The business opened in 1929 and is known as one of the last mom and pop grocery stores in the area.

Owner Michael Dimperio said big chain grocery stores and shoplifters make it tough to survive.

"The fact that our business has been declining for years, and now that we have this bad element we are dealing with, it makes us sit down and say, 'Do we want to continue?' And we decided that we didn't," Dimperio said.

It's a decision Michael and Carol Dimperio made together with their son.

Michael Dimperio's father opened the store. But he said big chain grocery stores, and an increase in crime, specifically shoplifters, are the reasons they're closing -- leaving the community without a grocery store.

"There won't be any other store here after they leave. We'll have to go to Giant Eagles," said customer Sally Blake.

"There's a lot of people come here that don't have transportation any place, and they get all of their groceries here," said another customer.

It's the customers, and their employees, who are all from Hazelwood, that the Dimperios said they will miss the most.

"We knew their parents. We know them. We know their children, their grandchildren. And we actually liked working with them. They're a family to us," said Carol Dimperio.

"We take pride knowing that people who have worked here have gone on to better themselves," said Michael Dimperio.

The store will officially close in mid-January.

As for the building, the Dimperios said they're not sure what they're going to do, but they wouldn't mind if someone came in and started their own grocery store.

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