Wegmans Market Café to Open Thursday
The long-anticipated opening of Wegmans Market Café on Tilghman Street is expected to arrive with lots of fanfare on Thursday.
The long-anticipated opening of Wegmans Market Café on Tilghman Street is expected to arrive with lots of fanfare on Thursday morning, including a Wegmans cheer and free food samples.
The grocery store, which was built in 1998, is undergoing renovations and just completed a 15,000-square-foot addition with more than 200 seats on the main floor.
The new Timber Room, which features a stone fireplace, will have seating for 66. The new café space will include a catering department and a larger area for beer, expanding the selection from 700 offerings to 1,200.
Other parts of Wegmans are still undergoing renovation.
- In late April, a new outdoor patio with seating for 40 will open, with a fireplace and pergola for dining al fresco.
- Opening in late spring will be The Pub, a 130-seat, full-service restaurant and bar.
- Combined indoor, outdoor and Pub seating will total nearly 400, more than doubling the number of seats currently available.
- By October, virtually every area and department in the store will have been upgraded and remodeled, including the parking lot, the addition of checkout registers and remodeled restrooms.
- 50 jobs (part-time and full-time) will have been added at the Tilghman Street store, which employs more than 700 today, and brings the size of the store to 123,000 square feet.
The new seating area replaces the store’s mezzanine café, which will be renovated and available in the future to reserve for private parties or business meetings.
“Our customers and our employees have been very patient for the last several months as we worked both inside and outside the building to transform this store into something really special,” Store Manager Mike Kier said in a news release.
Customers who are at the store at 8 a.m. Thursday will be encouraged to join employees in the Wegmans cheer, a company tradition for important occasions.
Other activities planned for the day include samples of popular entertainment food, and from 4 p.m. to 7 p.m., a sampling of some of the new beers that will be available in the Market Café.
Ben Miller
10:26 am on Wednesday, March 20, 2013
They all sound like great improvements to an already wonderful store. The best part of this story for me was the number of people employed by the store... 700 and soon to be 750. When most people are talking about downsizing and employees are seeing themselves replaced with automation, it's great to see such a strong employer.
With three of these stores in the Lehigh Valley, that's 2,100+ jobs... wow!
Ben Miller
10:32 am on Wednesday, March 20, 2013
I meant to add that Wegmans employees have given the stores high marks in external surveys and Wegmans was listed 5th on the list of '100 Best Companies to Work for in the United States' by Forbes magazine.
I don't mean to sound like a commercial for the store, I just want to point out that with so many employees at one location and it being like that presumably, at most others, it's really impressive that their employee relations are so good.
Nancy Lorch
11:37 pm on Wednesday, March 20, 2013
I agree with you Ben. Wegmans is a great store and good for our community in many ways. I only shop there for their quality products and great service. I'll be going back tomorrow for the cafe opening which I'm sure it's great.