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The customer who lined up for the Grand Opening of the Echo Park Sprouts were met with a balloon arch and morning rain.
Customers lined up in the rain to be the first to enter the Echo Park Sprouts store on grand opening day.
Sprouts employees handed out roses to the first customers to enter the Echo Park store.
Customers explore the produce section in the Echo Park Sprouts.
Customers in check out line at Echo Park Sprouts on opening day.
All smiles at the Echo Park Sprouts check-out line.
The customer who lined up for the Grand Opening of the Echo Park Sprouts were met with a balloon arch and morning rain.
Customers lined up in the rain to be the first to enter the Echo Park Sprouts store on grand opening day.
Sprouts employees handed out roses to the first customers to enter the Echo Park store.
Customers explore the produce section in the Echo Park Sprouts.
Customers in check out line at Echo Park Sprouts on opening day.
All smiles at the Echo Park Sprouts check-out line.
Echo Park—A new Sprouts market has opened at the site of a former Rite Aid on Glendale Boulevard, after many delays and some of the indignities to which empty buildings are sometimes subject.
“Echo Park is going to be different. There’s a mixture of everybody,” said the floor manager, Jeremiah Huggins, who has worked at about a dozen Sprouts locations in his 13 years with the company. “You see so many kids excited about fruits and vegetables.”
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The store held a special preview event Thursday night for select customers, and officially opens for business today. The market chain has a reputation for quality products, organic options, and a broad variety of produce, including from local farmers.
Suzy Ramirez and Richard Bugarin, customers at last night’s event, were buying Lucy Glo apples, which are naturally pink on the inside. Stacy Harris, who lives four blocks away, is a fan of the store’s prepared foods and homeopathic remedies.
And state Assemblymember Jessica Caloza, whose district includes Echo Park, was buying an assortment of cookies, scones, and other pastries for a staff retreat the next day.
“I’m just excited they’ve brought 100 jobs,” Caloza said, noting that a lot of people who were handing out free samples at last night’s event had been hired recently.
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Today’s grand opening concludes a long transition for this building. The Rite Aid that once occupied this spot closed in May 2022, amid a nationwide string of closures for the drugstore chain. At that time, The Eastsider took a reader poll for what should replace it, and the choice, it turns out, was Sprouts.
Before that could happen, however, the building was a temporary Halloween store and, briefly, a homeless encampment. But finally, in August 2023, Sprouts announced they would take over the building. They initially planned to open in 2024, then August 2025, then October 17.
All that time, the store opening has been hotly anticipated, with people frequently checking the web to see if the doors had opened yet.
“I’ve been looking forward to it since they announced it,” Harris said.
The new Sprouts market on its preview night, Nov. 13.
Photo by Barry Lank
Handing out free samples of purple sweet potato pie.
Photo by Barry Lank
State Assemblymember Jessica Caloza checking the price on the avocados.
Photo by Barry Lank