SEQUIM — The city’s oldest retail store is closing after 90 years in business.
Lehman’s Mark & Pak, the grocery store and meat company owned and operated by four generations of the Lehman family, will shut its doors after remaining inventory is sold.
“It’s been a sad couple of days,” store manager Randy Lehman, 42, said. “We’ve had loyal customers. Tons of people have been coming in saying they are sorry.”
The store, which opened in 1911, has seen slower sales in recent years as a result of large chain stores like Safeway and QFC moving into the area, Lehman said.
Medians and landscaping added during the South Sequim Avenue renovation made the store’s parking lot more difficult to get to, adding to a decrease in customers, Lehman said.
The construction of the Sequim bypass may also have led to a decline in business, said Rick Lehman, who manages the meat department at the store.
“It was a tough decision,” the store manager said. “We’ve had many good years. We wanted to make it our choice to go out of business.”
This full story appears in today’s Jefferson County edition of the Peninsula Daily News. Click on “Subscribe” to get the PDN delivered to your home or office.