BATH BOROUGH, Pa. — After more than three decades in business, Ahart’s Market is preparing to close its doors following a devastating loss caused by a weekend power outage.<\/p>\n
Owner George Ahart said a power outage Saturday night left the store without electricity until approximately 5 p.m. Sunday.<\/p>\n
As a result, nearly all of the food stored in the market’s freezers spoiled, rendering an estimated $150,000 worth of inventory unsafe for sale.<\/p>\n
The loss proved to be a major blow for the business.<\/p>\n
Residents say the closure will leave a significant void in the community.<\/p>\n
“It’s a shame of what took place here, because this was a nice store and everything you wanted,” said Bath resident Frank Turdo.<\/p>\n
Turdo noted that the market provided an important service for residents who lacked reliable transportation.<\/p>\n
“For the people that don’t even have a vehicle, they could come here and walk to the store and get whatever they need,” he said.<\/p>\n
While Ahart said he will miss operating the store, he said the customers are what he will miss most. Over the years, many became more like family than patrons.<\/p>\n
Longtime customer Lori Stack recalled one example that demonstrated Ahart’s commitment to helping the community during difficult times.<\/p>\n
During the Blizzard of 1996, Stack said residents were stranded by heavy snowfall and a shelter was established at George Wolf Elementary School. With dozens of people in need of food, Ahart stepped in to help.<\/p>\n
“We had about 28 people. We had no food,” Stack said. “Bob gave us the keys to the store. My husband Dave and I came in here, got all the groceries to feed breakfast for all the stranded people for the next day or two. He didn’t charge us. It was all a donation.”<\/p>\n
Once the Bath location officially closes, the only remaining Ahart’s Market will be the company’s store in the Pocono region.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"BATH BOROUGH, Pa. — After more than three decades in business, Ahart’s Market is preparing to close its…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":217982,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[14],"tags":[214,153,155,154,60,5750],"class_list":["post-217981","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-bethlehem","tag-_homepage_top_stories","tag-bethlehem","tag-bethlehem-headlines","tag-bethlehem-news","tag-business","tag-nazareth-northampton-area"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/217981","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=217981"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/217981\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/217982"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=217981"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=217981"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=217981"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}