Hundreds crowd outside Groton Shopping Center for Aldi opening
Groton — A crowd of hundreds of people counted down “5-4-3-2-1!” and cheered like it was Black Friday as the doors opened Thursday morning at the new Aldi food market in Groton.
Matt Gillette, 36, a cable installer from Groton, arrived at 3 a.m. and was first in line.
“I’ve been driving to either Lisbon or Warwick to shop at Aldi once a week for the last six months,” he said.
Hordes of people stretched from the store’s entrance down the length of the Groton Shopping Center on Long Hill Road, past TJ Maxx, Goodwill and around the corner of the plaza.
Town police handled traffic control in the parking lot.
“I was like, ‘Oh my God, I should have listened to my husband,'” Apriljean Brooks, 32, a stay-at-home mom from Groton, remarked on the size of the crowd. He’d wanted her to arrive at 7 a.m, she said.
The store, a supermarket known for its discount groceries, gave the first 100 customers a “golden ticket” containing gift cards of varying amounts, and entered shoppers into a sweepstakes for a chance to win a year's supply of store produce.
Nancy Vaill, 67, of Groton waited about 400 people deep in a line from the entrance doors. “People are as crazy as me, thinking I was going to get the Willy Wonka ticket,” she said.
Town Mayor Bruce Flax spoke to the crowd immediately before the ribbon cutting at 8:30 a.m. “We have (Electric Boat) bringing in more employees and we’re going to continue to grow,” he said. “Go out, enjoy the store and come back often.”
Inside, shoppers sampled gluten-free crackers with Havarti cheese, chocolate and snicker doodle cookies. Customers loaded shopping carts and navigated traffic jams in the aisles.
“We have a pretty strong following, so when they know we’re coming to a town, they get pretty excited,” said Bruce Persohn, the South Windsor division vice president for Aldi. The store also received hundreds of applications for job openings. Aldi typically employs 12 to 15 people at each location, he said.
Vaill said the store is a symbol of good things to come. The strip malls in town that were tired and needing upgrades are coming to life, she said.
"(The mall owner) did the front, he paved and it did wonders,” she said. “A little paint goes a long way.”
Cedar-Groton LLC of Port Washington, N.Y., owns the shopping center on Long Hill Road and is working with developer Cedar Realty Trust Inc.
“It’s like new,” Vaill said. “He put a lot of money in this. But he’s going to make it back.”
Even store fronts that haven’t been rented yet look brighter, she added. “You feel very positive and with all the workers coming in from EB, we’re going to start sprucing up here,” she said.
Other communities can attract businesses, Vaill noted. “If Waterford can do it, why can’t we?”
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