LaGondola officially closes east side location

 

Every day, we’ve had many people inquiring about the status of the reopening of our Mt. Zion location. When we made the decision to close this location six months ago, we had every intention of reopening. At that point, we were hopeful the state of the workforce would have improved, meaning we would see more applicants and have the ability to fully staff both of our locations, both during the day shifts and the night shifts. Unfortunately, we are still having trouble fully staffing our North Water location to cover all hours of operation. After six months, we knew a decision would have to be made. At this time, we’ve realized it’s not feasible to continue to hold out without seeing changes in the workforce. As we mentioned in our previous post, never in a million years would we have imagined closing a thriving location due to the inability to fully staff both stores, and to accommodate the level of demand with the quality and service we strive for. As we’ve seen with many of the small family owned businesses, both locally and nationally, many external factors can impact the sustainability of small businesses. We are very fortunate to be able to fall back on a second location. It is more important than ever to continue to support your local small businesses, as they continue to face external challenges such as, product and supplier price increases, supply chain issues, and staffing challenges.

 

It’s with a broken heart from our entire LaGondola family to announce the closure of this location, as this would have been our 40-year anniversary in this space. The support of this community has been nothing short of exceptional. We are so grateful for every person we have had the opportunity to meet and make part of our family over the last 40 years here in Mt. Zion. We have been so blessed to have had so many amazing employees who will always be family to us. We are so humbled by our customers who we got to know by name and food order, who we looked forward to seeing each week. We are equally as humbled by those of you who always let us know you grew up here and looked forward to stopping in when visiting home. You have been the heart of our operations, and you’ve added so much to the success of this business.

 

The support and concern you have shown for this location over the last six months has meant the world to us. We would also like to thank the community for the continued support of our North Water location, especially over the last six months. This location will remain open to serving our Decatur and surrounding community, and we would love to continue to see our Mt. Zion friends at this location. If you have family or friends looking for a great work environment, send them into our North Water location for an application.

 

Sincerely,

LaGondola"