OTTAWA — The Ottawa Country Mart has been sold and will become a Price Chopper supermarket April 21.
The store has been bought by the queen family of Paola, which owns price chopper stores in Paola, Spring Hill, Bonner Springs, and two in overland park.
Jim and Barbara Queen opened their first grocery store over 40 years ago. Today the business is operated by their children Barry and Kim Queen, and Jayme and Tommy Morris.
“Our family has a commitment to the local communities that our stores serve,” said Barry Queen. “We are working toward a smooth transition in Ottawa and want to continue the strong partnership that has existed between the community and the store to this point.”
Price chopper will take control of the Ottawa store April 21 and close for a few days for remodeling, and reopen later that same week.
Queen said the store will keep the same number of jobs or more.
The family intends to hire most, if not all, of the current Ottawa employees. 5:15 p.m. Wednesday, March 19.
