Raintree Thriftway owner mum on closing

CLOVIS — The owner of Clovis’ Raintree Thriftway is staying tight-lipped about an official announcement of the grocery store's impending closing.

However, he's already informed his employees and his coffee shop tenant that the store will be closing its doors by the end of this month.

Sweetwater Coffee owner Lexi Myers said her manager was informed by Raintree owner Kyle Brewer about two weeks ago that Raintree would be closing and her coffee shop inside the grocery store will have to move.

She said Friday she was “looking fast and furious” for a new location.

“It saddens us, it breaks our heart,” she said, expressing gratitude for the patronage the shop has enjoyed inside the grocery store the past six months.

Raintree and Sweetwater are located on East Llano Estacado Boulevard. The grocery store had a short-lived history, only opening its doors on Oct. 1, 2015.

Myers said the shop inside Raintree would continue operating until it had exhausted its inventory, likely in another week.

Meanwhile, everything at Raintree — except for alcohol and tobacco — was marked down 10 percent this week according to a sign taped on the front doors. Much of the meat selection was depleted by Friday.

Store employees have been telling customers for the past two weeks that the store will close, though exactly when is not clear.

Brewer has repeatedly declined to discuss the store’s future in detail with reporters, but claimed in an interview earlier this week that he had not decided whether or not to keep it open.

He asked that The News contact him again in a couple of weeks. He did not return repeated phone calls on Friday.

Myers said she believed the grocery store would close around the end of this month, but referred the question back to Brewer.

Several unknowns remain around the closing of the store, including the future of its employees and alcohol license.

Several employees, who asked not to be named, have said they were told by Raintree's management that they would be out of a job by the end of this month.

Meanwhile, Bernice Geiger, a spokesperson for the state’s Regulation and Licensing Department, said Friday that the Alcohol and Gaming division “has not received an application to transfer this liquor license nor has AGD been advised that one will be forthcoming.”