South Carolina has lost another longtime neighborhood grocery store, following a separate Piggly Wiggly closing announcement in Myrtle Beach in October. The Piggly Wiggly at 1160 South Main Street in Greenwood closed October 9, taking away the only full grocery store that many people in the surrounding census tract could reach on foot.
The shutdown ended more than five decades of grocery retail at Greenwood’s Abney Plaza. The location first opened as a Piggly Wiggly on December 4, 1973, operated as Price Wise beginning in the mid-2000s and returned to the Piggly Wiggly name in 2018.
Food access changed immediately
Andrea White, executive director of the Food Bank of the Lakelands, told the Index-Journal that the store was the only grocery in Census Tract 9705 that nearby residents could walk to. After it closed, she estimated that the nearest large grocery store required a 20- to 30-minute walk in each direction…