Phoenix-based grocery chain Sprouts Farmers Market is getting closer to opening its newest location in Charlotte, coming to Steele Creek at 14124 Steele Creek Road.
The company’s second area site, and sixth in North Carolina, is expected to open on November 17, according to the specialty grocer’s website. Sprouts debuted in Charlotte five years ago in Ballantyne at 15121 Ballancroft Parkway. The health-conscious grocery store is also in Raleigh, Fayetteville, Durham, and Greensboro. Sprouts has more than 380 locations across the country.
The company will move into the former home of Earth Fare, which closed nearly three years ago. Sprouts will occupy an enormous 24,250-square-foot building in the Rivergate Shopping Center. The new location near Lake Wylie is part of Sprout’s plan to open 32 stores nationwide this year. So far, the company has been expanding almost at a rate of one new restaurant per week, with a Haddon Township location opening this week and a Tampa Sprouts opening next week.
“Back in 2002, we opened our first store in an effort to make natural foods accessible to everyone,” according to the company’s website. “Up until then, grocers offering fresh, organic choices were either too expensive to shop or too hard to find. We wanted to be different! No more weaving through a maze of narrow aisles without anyone offering to help. No more ingredient lists featuring 40 unpronounceable chemicals. And most of all, no more spending an entire paycheck for food from the honest effort of a farmer – not a factory.”
