The Nickles Bakery Thrift Store at 1540 S. Arlington St. in Akron will close Friday. It is the bakery’s only thrift store location in Summit County.
Phil Gardner, vice president of sales and marketing and a member of the family that owns the 108-year-old bakery, said “declining sales” are prompting the closing. The bakery closed a thrift store in Cambridge last month.
The six employees of the shop, which serves the Firestone Park and East Akron neighborhoods, have been offered jobs at the bakery in Navarre. At least half will work there, Gardner said. The company also has bakeries in Lima and Martins Ferry.
The closing is not an indication of any issues with the bakery operation, which employees about 500 people in Navarre, Gardner said.
“This is just an individual decision about the thrift store. There seems to be a trend that bakery thrift stores are closing,” he said, noting that other bakeries have closed thrift shops.
Asked whether competition from other food retailers is to blame, Gardner said he didn’t know.
“There are a lot of places to buy bread” these days, he said.
The thrift shop has been a source of inexpensive bakery products for 25 years. The bakery had been leasing the building from Anthony Parasson Inc., owner of the Parasson’s Italian Restaurant next door. The 16,500-square-foot building dates back to the 1940s, according to Summit County property tax records.
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