After opening seven Save A Lot discount grocery stores on Chicago’s South and West sides with a promise to address food deserts, embattled operator Yellow Banana is set to shutter all stores this weekend, leaving predominantly Black and brown residents without a grocery store.
Save A Lot says it’s cutting ties with Yellow Banana and will “end [its] arrangement,” company spokesperson Sarah Griffin said in a statement. Without Save A Lot corporate’s support, operator Yellow Banana will close all its stores, a few years after promising residents they would undo reputational damage to the Save A Lot brand.
“Financial headwinds” under Yellow Banana’s ownership are the cause of terminating the relationship, Griffin said. Save A Lot points to “dramatic cuts to SNAP benefits,” as significant challenges.
The company was unable to find a path forward to keep the stores open and notified Yellow Banana at the end of June that it would be terminating its operational agreement.
The end of the arrangement means Yellow Banana will have to find its own way out of the taxpayer-funded deal with the city or close six locations by Saturday if it does not find an alternative, according to Save A Lot.
Ohio-based operator Yellow Banana has a redevelopment agreement with the city of Chicago, for which it received over $13 million in taxpayer financing to renovate and reopen the stores. On top of the taxpayer funding, Save A Lot has requested an additional $3 million from the city recoup funds given to Yellow Banana, according to Ald. Marty Quinn (13th).
Quinn said he was told the stores were in danger of closing last week by Save A Lot.
With the scrutinized 2023 deal ending, “the city is exploring every opportunity to recoup taxpayer funding, if necessary,” said Department of Planning and Development spokesperson Peter Strazzabosco.
Save A Lot, which has a licensing agreement with Yellow Banana, went above and beyond the agreement terms to help out the operator financially and operationally.
Griffin has said previously Save A Lot was “committed to the long-term success” of a licensed network of stores. Since then, it has helped financially support Yellow Banana stores, despite not appearing in the redevelopment agreement between Yellow Banana and the city.
After years of delayed timelines, millions in lawsuits, fines and closures Yellow Banana was dealt its largest blow in April when CEO Joe Canfield died of a stroke, the Sun-Times reported last month. He was 54.
The death of the Ohio-based entrepreneur triggered a potential default in the city of Chicago’s redevelopment agreement. Yellow Banana was required to submit a succession plan, the Department of Planning and Development said at the time. No plan had been submitted as of last month.
Quinn said residents in his ward waited the longest for the West Lawn store at 4439 W. 63rd St. to open, after years of delays. The location opened in April 2025, the last of the stores to open.
“It’s very … unfortunate, this development,” he said on Tuesday. “I’ve been in contact with Commissioner [Ciere] Boatright who’s exploring all avenues of opportunity right now to keep the lights on.
His residents have to head to the suburbs to get groceries without Save A Lot, he said.
Strazzabosco said the recent death of Canfield contributed as well to the ending of the agreement.
Canfield’s death was largely kept quiet, and no obituary or social media posts could be found from loved ones. While Canfield was in charge and the on-the-ground presence for the stores, Yellow Banana also consisted of three other members — co-founders Michael Nance, Walker Brumskine and Ademola Adewale-Sadik, all of whom did not respond to a request for comment.
Yellow Banana was pitched to Chicagoans in 2022 as a Black-owned company that wanted to reinvest in Save A Lot locations that came with a reputation for dirty stores, a rat infestation and expired foods.
Yellow Banana’s legal trouble started soon after its 2021 inception, shrinking from 38 stores across five states to the six covered under the redevelopment agreement and a seventh in Englewood, which is also in danger of closing Saturday. Since the deal, Canfield was also personally hit with lawsuits, liens and foreclosures.
Citations and penalties for expired foods, upcharging customers and overgrown weeds continued throughout the entirety of Yellow Banana’s ownership.
But even so, residents were overjoyed at the opening of the stores. For many, it meant they did not have to travel miles out of their way to get groceries and fresh food.
In 2024, Save A Lot stepped in to take the reins on many of Yellow Banana’s 38 locations, with the remaining stores outside of Chicago shuttering due to poor performance.
“We’ve got a big commitment in Chicago, and we really need to be able to deliver what we said. … There’s public tax dollars there,” Canfield said in September 2024. “We take that commitment very, very seriously. So we went to Save A Lot and said, ‘Hey, for us to focus on this, we should figure out a partnership here that’s going to allow this to move forward.’”
On May 29, Griffin told the Sun-Times that Save A Lot management was “leaning in, investing additional funding and operational resources into the stores and the Yellow Banana organization to ensure these stores can continue to provide a full, fresh shopping experience across Chicago.”
But one month later, Save A Lot had decided to part ways with Yellow Banana, ceasing the additional funding and resources for the stores.
Alternatives, Strazzabosco said, include finding potential investors and suppliers.
The redevelopment agreement keeps Yellow Banana on the hook to keep stores open until at least 2035. The default, or breaking of the legal agreement, means city officials could force the beleaguered company to pay back the $13 million it received from tax financing to open stores in underserved neighborhoods traditional grocers had abandoned.
“If they’re closed, each of the stores under the redevelopment agreement must be re-occupied by a grocer within one year to avoid defaults,” Strazzabosco said. The seventh store, in Englewood, has 18 months under a redevelopment agreement with Englewood Square LP.
The Englewood store, despite not being covered under the redevelopment agreement, caused protests and outcry from neighbors ahead of the 2023 opening. Yellow Banana worked with the city to secure the location, and was given subsidized rent.
“It is known as one of the worst grocery operators, poor-quality products, less-than-fresh produce, off-brand products,” Ald. Stephanie Coleman (16th) told the Sun-Times at the time. “If you visit any of their stores you’ll see that we just deserve better.”
All locations are just in need of an operator and are ready for continued occupancy, Strazzabosco said.
“The City’s priority is for the stores to remain open with a current or new operator. If they go dark, the goal is for each building to expediently reopen with a full-service grocer,” he said in a statement. “The City is exploring every opportunity to recoup taxpayer funding, if necessary.”
Contributing: Lauren FitzPatrick