Produce with Appeal: The Story of Top Banana
Chapter Eight: The Store Closes
Story by Nicholas Reiner
The 2008 financial crash hit Top Banana hard. Every year Top Banana was in Orange County, its business had grown in volume. Until 2008. In 2008 and 2009 sales remained the same. They flatlined. Then 2010 came and sales began dropping. They’d get 500 sales on the register on weekdays. That’s not bad, Greta thought, but it’s not the 1,000 sales from a few years earlier. Her back, pummeled from years of labor, was getting worse and the lease was up in 2011.
Greta has trouble putting together entirely why it came to an end. Most likely it was a combination of reasons. She hadn’t gotten the store into organics quickly enough. The shopping center in which Top Banana had located had become more run-down. Costco had moved into the neighborhood. After all these years, her back was hurting so much; her mind wasn’t right.
The store closed on August 28, 2011. Greta invited all the old employees to closing day and sold everything in the store at half price. She had let employees know she was closing back in June, thinking it was the right thing to do even though she knew that they might leave to find other jobs beforehand. (No employees did leave early.) So many customers came in that final day. They brought Greta presents and cards and dropped in to say goodbye and to buy more produce than they could possibly eat.
Less than three months later, Otto died from chronic obstructive pulmonary disease, congestive heart failure and lung cancer. He was 81.
He saw us close what he started, Greta thought. She was with him in Oregon when he died. Top Banana kept him going, she knew. It ended all at the same time.
