Erie County Department of Health officials closed both of Erie’s Save A Lot grocery stores April 23 for having expired licenses to operate as retail food facilities.
The Save A Lot located at 2026 Broad St. has since reapplied for the required license and reopened, but the other, 2209 W. 12th St., will remain closed.
“Having these licenses is important because it assures that these stores want to follow the (Pennsylvania) food code regulations,” said Jesse Stiles, the county health department’s director of environmental health services. “It also allows us to inspect them to make sure they are keeping a safe and sanitary environment.”
Neither Save A Lot applied for a new operating license after the parent company reacquired the Erie stores in March 2025. The Broad Street store’s license expired March 5, 2026 and the West 12th Street store’s license expired March 19, 2026, Stiles said.
Erie County Department of Health ordered Erie’s two Save A Lot grocery stores to close April 23 for having expired operating licenses. The store shown above, located at 2209 W. 12th St., will remain closed, while the one at 2026 Broad St. has applied for a license and reopened.
County health inspectors visited each store multiple times to inform store managers about the need to reapply, Stiles said. After Save A Lot missed two deadline extensions, the county health department ordered both stores to close April 23.
“We got a call from Save A Lot in short order that its licensing department would take care of the application online for the Broad Street facility, though it wasn’t actually done until (April 27),” Stiles said. “The situation with the West 12th Street facility was similar at first, but then they told us that store was scheduled to close anyway.”
Messages left with Save A Lot’s corporate office in Missouri were not returned.
A sign posted on the front doors of Save A Lot, 2209 W. 12th St., states that the Erie County Department of Health ordered the Millcreek Township grocery store to close. Other handmade signs indicated the store closed permanently April 26.
The county health department can order facilities to close for not having an operating license, or violating the state food code in a way that poses an immediate threat to the health or safety of its staff and customers.
It typically happens several times a year, but usually to taverns, restaurants or convenience stores — not full-sized grocery stores, Stiles said.
“I have been working here for almost five years and this is a first for me,” Stiles said. “We have ordered facilities to close but not at the level of a grocery store.”
Save A Lot resumed control of the stores in 2025
Both facilities had been operating as Save A Lot stores since August, after the parent company assumed control and spent months renovating the buildings.
The previous owner — Sunshine Stores LLC, according to county health inspection reports — had “improperly rebranded” the stores, a Save A Lot spokeswoman said in August. They operated for a time as Value Food Stores before being placed into a court-appointed receivership.
Save A Lot had previously sold many of its company-owned stores to independent grocery retailers to focus on the wholesale side of the business.
It is not known if the 2209 W. 12th St. store will reopen under new ownership.
Contact David Bruce at dbruce@timesnews.com or by calling 814-870-1736.
(This story was updated to add new information.)
This article originally appeared on Erie Times-News: Erie Save A Lots closed by health officials for expired licenses