Farewell, Amazon Fresh
The Amazon Fresh store in Bailey’s Crossroads shut down for good on Feb. 1, as part of the company’s plan to close all Amazon Fresh stores nationwide.
Vani Appukkutty, a senior manager at Amazon, notified Virginia officials about the closure in a letter on Jan. 28 as required by the federal Worker Adjustment and Retraining Notification Act.
The WARN letter says the store at 5811 Crossroads Center Way, in Bailey’s Crossroads, is closing, along with the Amazon Fresh stores in Fairfax, Franconia, Lorton, and Alexandria.
According to the company, the decision to shut down all Amazon Fresh and Amazon Go stores follows a “careful evaluation of the business and how we can best serve customers.” Some of the closed stores will be converted to Whole Foods.
Related story: All Amazon Fresh stores will close
Employees will be laid off on April 27, unless they accept “internal transfer opportunities at Amazon” before that date, the WARN letter states. Nearly 700 employees will be affected across the five stores in Northern Virginia. The Bailey’s Crossroads store has 134 employees.
Amazon says it will provide information about benefits and severance to eligible affected employees at a later date.
According to the letter, “Amazon and its affiliates do not allow separated employees to displace any other employee based on seniority or any other factor (i.e., no ‘bumping rights’ exist). Affected employees who are separated as a result of this action will be paid all wages and other benefits to which they are entitled (if any) through their date of separation, provided they do not resign from their employment with Amazon prior to that date.”
The company announced on Jan. 28 plans to cut 16,000 corporate jobs in early 2026. Amazon employs about 20,000 people in the D.C. area, including 8,500 at the company’s second headquarters in Arlington.
Everyone nowadays needs to have a plan B and even c . As more and more it becomes common to ” pull the rug out” from under their employees with emails .” No hard feelings, by the way tomorrow you are no longer employed” . Use to be it was common courtesy to give ample notice . No life savers thrown anymore . Just see ya wouldn’t want to be ya.I feel for these hard workers . Such is the job market as we speak .🥲
According to the article, they were given the opportunity to take jobs elsewhere in the company or get three months pay. That’s extremely good for retail work; I’m not sure what kind of lifesaver you’d expect.
And bezos funded the melania movie for $83,000,000
Please don’t insert another ethnic grocer or place of business. We’d like some mainstream businesses in the community as well.
I really liked the baileys x rds amazon fresh store, despite their probem with empty shelves and keeping products stocked. I don’t think that the store was open for even a year. Makes me wonder if Amazon acted too quickly in pulling the plug.
They seriously forced out Safeway for some hyped up store that took 6 years to actually open only to close it down in a year, sure they had problems but at least they had a good pharmacy.
Good to see these kind of mainstream places shut down that don’t serve the community. Hopefully we get something there that appeals to local interests and doesn’t just sell the same processed junk you can get in any 7-11 or 5 minutes up the road at another better stocked grocery store.