MarketFoods Closing Tulsa Grocery Store

MarketFoods Ltd. of Rogers will close its store in Tulsa this month, said Mike Sadler, general manager of The Market at KingsPointe Village.

Sadler said the company, which is in Chapter 11 bankruptcy proceedings, started a clearance sale on March 2 and would likely close the store within two weeks. He said the store had 54 employees.

Sadler said the store’s business had “really fallen off” after the Tulsa World published a story on Jan. 12 saying the owners of KingsPointe Village were trying to evict the store because it was behind on rent.

“Every day, we’d get 50 phone calls saying, ‘Are you still open?'” Sadler said.

The closing will leave the upscale grocery company with only one store left, The Market at Pinnacle Point in Rogers. MarketFoods closed its store in suburban Chicago in January, and a store under construction in Des Moines, Iowa, is on hold.

After initially filing for bankruptcy protection on Jan. 24, MarketFoods filed a list of creditors with the bankruptcy court in Fayetteville on Feb. 23 saying it has assets of $10.5 million and debts of $23.5 million. Unsecured claims totaled $18.1 million. Secured claims amounted to $5.4 million.

MarketFoods is owned by Richard Donckers (33 percent), Collins Haynes (33 percent), David Montoya (23.2 percent), Carlos Rodriguez (5 percent), Paul K. Pope Sr. (5 percent) and Lawrence and Janice Fennell, (0.5 percent), according to the bankruptcy filing.

All owners are apparently residents of Rogers except Pope, who lives in Bella Vista, and Montoya, whose residence was most often listed as Oakland, Mich.

Richard Donckers’ consulting company, Retail Strategies International of Rogers, is also under investigation for billing Kmart Corp. for $2 million in consulting fees prior to the retailer’s bankruptcy. Montoya is a former Kmart vice president who is currently vice president of operations for MarketFoods.