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Harris Teeter is closing at 9 p.m. starting Sunday. How about others?

Harris Teeter in Fox Hills to open May 8 (WYDaily/ Courtesy of the City of Hampton)
Harris Teeter in Fox Hills to open May 8 (WYDaily/ Courtesy of the City of Hampton)

Harris Teeter will close all its stores at 9 p.m. starting March 15 due to coronavirus concerns.

In a tweet, the grocery store chain said it wanted to focus on cleaning and replenishment of its stores and the well-being of its employees.

The stores will continue to close at 9 p.m. until further notice.

WYDaily reached out to other grocery store chains on the Peninsula to see what they were doing in response to the coronavirus.

Lidl

“Our CEO outlined many of the measures we are taking to address the COVID-19 outbreak in a recent letter to our customers,” William Haywood, spokesman for U.S. Lidl stores, wrote in an email. “As our approach evolves with the situation, we will be happy to update you.”

The letter stated Lidl has a coronavirus task force working with local, state and federal health agencies including the CDC.

“We have increased our focus on cleaning and have assigned team members to perform regular sanitizing sweeps in key high traffic, high touch ares,” according to the undated news release. “We have also restructured our benefits so that if employees are infected by the virus, or if they work in a store or facility that is included within a government or company-instituted quarantine, we will provide up to two weeks of pay while the employee is away from work.”

The stores are not changing their current operations hours at this time.

Sam’s Club

“At this time, we have not changed our club hours,” said Laura Poff, corporate communications team at Sam’s Club.

In a recent news release from Kath McLay, president and CEO of Sam’s Club, the chain noted it implement more safety measures such as wiping down shopping carts after every use and has hand sanitizers at every entrance, exit and some registers.

Fresh Market

A media representative from Fresh Market responded to WYDaily in an email noting all the stores were operating as usual.

“At this time, we are operating under normal business hours, but this is something currently under review,” the email read. “As the situation unfolds, The Fresh Market is making all practical and prudent decisions to do what is best to take care of our guests and team members so we can remain open and well-stocked, while maintaining the highest standards of store cleanliness.”

Walmart

Tricia Moriarty, spokeswoman for Walmart, shared a video clip from its U.S. CEO John Furner and a notification to customers on how the company is responding to the coronavirus.

“We also have plans in place for third-party sanitization should it be needed for a store impacted by the virus,” the March 10 news release noted. “And we are evaluating whether to modify store hours at some 24-hour facilities to allow for additional cleaning.”

“We’ve empowered our store managers to best serve the needs of their customers and community, such as adjusting store hours,” Moriarty wrote, adding information about specific stores would be posted on the store’s Facebook page.

On Twitter, the main account tweeted Walmart was working with the federal government to help with drive-thru testing.

Food Lion

Matt Harakal, spokesman for Food Lion, wrote in an email the chain did not have any updates to its store hours either.

Kroger, Aldi, Whole Foods, Costco and Traders Joe’s were not immediately available for comment.

According to the website, Costco needs 24 to 48 hours to respond to media requests and the requests are not monitored in the evening hours, on weekends or on holidays.

Julia Marsigliano
Julia Marsiglianohttp://wydaily.com
Julia Marsigliano is a multimedia reporter for WYDaily. She covers everything on the Peninsula from local government and law enforcement agencies to family-run businesses and weather updates. Before WYDaily, she covered Hampton and Newport News for WYDaily’s sister publication, HNNDaily before both publications merged in December 2018. Julia was born in Tokyo, Japan and moved to Long Island, New York in 2001. A true New Yorker, she loves pizza, bagels and good Chinese food. Send comments, tips and other tidbits to julia@localvoicemedia.com. You can follow her on Twitter at @jmarsigliano

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