Top Ryde: Golden Banana fruit shop closes
Soaring rents and competition from major supermarkets has prompted the closure of one of Top Ryde City’s longest-running businesses, Golden Banana Fruit Market.
SOARING rents and competition from major supermarkets has prompted the closure of one of Top Ryde City’s longest-running businesses, Golden Banana Fruit Market.
The fruit shop will close on Sunday, March 31, almost 50 years after it opened in 1970.
Co-owner Micky Lapa said major refurbishments in the Devlin St centre had added to challenges of sustaining the shop, which was placed under voluntary administration in December under Cor Cordies.
Miss Lapa said the store had suffered because of Aldi, Woolworths and Coles supermarkets.
“I put the business in voluntary administration for the simple reason I couldn’t cope with that,’’ she said.
The closure will leave 32 workers unemployed.
Miss Lapa, who has been the owner for 10 years, said the business had struggled for a decade.
“Since 2009 we have struggled; they never addressed the fact the elevators are broken all the time, there’s a stench of sewage …”
The business could not meet $21,000 weekly rents and Miss Lapa said the store had sought assistance from centre mangement but was not successful.
Top Ryde City’s marketing manager Fiona Stewart said the landlord worked with the tenant and the administrator to address rent problems at Golden Banana.
“We can advise that the landlord worked with the tenant during their time at the centre, as well as the administrator to find a satisfactory outcome for both parties,’’ she said.
“Top Ryde City is committed to supporting our retailers and we work closely with our tenants on a variety of initiatives to support their trade,’’ she said.
Mrs Stewart said management was working on longer-term solutions to decrease the number of outages including customer education around using the lifts.
“Our number one priority is the safety and comfort of our customers, so while we aim to ensure outages are minimised, we will not risk leaving vertical transportation which may have a fault operational,’’ she said.
She said the centre employed a large team of cleaning staff and their processes were monitored within industry standards.
She said staff were “constantly reviewed to ensure the centre is maintained to a high standard at all times”.
Mrs Stewart said the centre valued its small businesses and opportunities would be reviewed.
“The landlord has also consistently contributed significant funds into providing marketing support for the centre and our retailers, and is committed to assisting retailers in their day-to-day business,’’ she said.
“We provide all retailers with a wide variety of support initiatives to assist them to promote their business and encourage them to participate in a range of centre promotions.”
Mrs Stewart indicated the shop would still be used as a fruit store.
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