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New Leaf Community Markets has announced it will soon close its Pleasanton grocery store, which anchors the Vintage Hills Shopping Center at the corner of Bernal and Vineyard avenues.
“We put a lot of thought into this decision, and we believe it is the right thing to do for the long-term growth of our company,” New Leaf officials said in a post on the company website. “This allows us to focus resources on thoughtful and sustainable growth.”
The specific closing date, which has not been scheduled, depends on how quickly the store sells through its remaining inventory, company officials said.
The Santa Cruz-based grocer first moved to Pleasanton in May 2013, opening in the old Romley’s supermarket space that had been empty for nearly 15 years.
“Thank you Pleasanton” and “Store closeout” signs now greet customers entering the New Leaf store at 3550 Bernal Ave., informing shoppers of the pending closure.
“It’s been an honor to serve this community and we’ll miss seeing you, our favorite customers, every day,” the thank-you sign reads. “If you find yourself in Santa Cruz or Half Moon Bay, stop by one of our other locations and say hello!”
Pleasanton City Manager Nelson Fialho said Friday, “The news is unfortunate in light of the progress made over the years with facade improvements and decreased vacancies. I recall the days when the center was mostly shuttered. The city will do what it can to work with the property owner to find a suitable replacement.”
New Leaf plans to “make every effort” to transfer Pleasanton employees to one of its six other locations — all outside the East Bay — and provide them with other transitional services, according to New Leaf marketing lead Sarah Owens. New Leaf’s parent company, Portland, Ore.-based New Seasons Market, also has a store in San Jose.
Employees who can’t transfer will receive transition pay, extended health care benefits and job search support, according to Owens.
“We are proud of the relationships we built over the last three years, and it’s been an honor to serve this community,” company vice president Mary Wright said in a statement.
“Putting employees first has been a core value since our founding and we are working hard to support each and every person through this transition, including finding jobs within our organization and providing transitional services,” Wright added.
Focusing on nutritious products and sustainable practices, New Leaf officials said the company would work with local organizations to minimize food waste resulting from the Vintage Hills store closure.
The Pleasanton store is one of two New Leaf stores outside Santa Cruz County — the other being Half Moon Bay. The other five locations are in Santa Cruz, Capitola, Boulder Creek and Felton.
All other New Leaf stores will remain open, Owens said.
Dublin Planning Commission gives final OK for Sunflower Hill’s new affordable housing project December 24, 2025 8:40 am
Hello Trader Joes…. PLEASE
I guess a Trader Joe’s could work, but there’s not really another grocery store I’d prefer so close to home. Whole Paycheck is a joke compared to the new leaf, and we just don’t need another safeway around here pushing total garbage as food.
Oh well. I’ll miss the short walk to fresh food everyday.
I wonder if Sprouts would consider another store so close to the Dublin store
WHAT???? Oh my gosh this is my favorite grocery store and I drive from Livermore to patronize this store!!!!! This can’t be true!!!!!!!!!!! I am so sad!!!!!
We purchased a town home immediately behind this market place in 1998.
I had contacted Kay Ayala at that time if she and the city council were working with developers to bring in a retailer to this site.
Kay Ayala’s response to me, “we do not like developers in this town”.
I am shocked and sadden by this news as our family has been shopping at New Leaf Pleasanton since the first day it opened… it’s hard to stomach and makes me wonder what Corporate was thinking especially knowing the HUGE housing development that is right down the street and the potential that had to make them in business.
Wow they lasted about the same number of years as Fresh and Easy (different side of the town of course). goes to show some people don’t like changes and new stores. I will miss New Leaf. they had the best Essential Oil supply around.
My guess is the rent was some rediculous amount and drove them out before they could turn a profit.
I know that when that place was an empty firetrap the landlords were pushing for 24k a month minimum, which is why it sat vacant for so
long. The city never stepped in to remedy the situation, and let the landords pretend to be in “negotiations” with potential clients for close to 8 years, leaving the place a community eyesore.
We finally get a reputable occupant, and 3 years later they are done. The landlords own multiple strip malls, all in disrepair- but still pulling rents and those that stay vacant become tax shelters, so they have no interest in negotiating fair market rents.
I’m sorry to read this, also. I’ve been a regular customer.
Trader Joe’s won’t be going in that space. They are taking over the Fresh and Easy site in Rosewood and due to open soon. Much better location for Trader Joe’s.
For those of you who care about the closing, perhaps we ought to start a campaign to call in or email them (info@newleaf.com) asking how far away they were from breaking even at this store and why they are closing before the new apartments open. I don’t know that it will make any bit of difference, but perhaps it might, given that they seem to care more than your typical company. (For example, they are a B corporation–a type of company that blends non-profit motives with for-profit structure, allowing them to take investors but still do what they think is right for the community and not just the shareholders. Only companies that have that community interest would do that.)
They were bought out by another company from Oregon.
I am saddened to see this store leaving. Not only a healthy alternative to the other “grocery” markets, but a comfortable and friendly place to shop for the best foods available. I will miss it! No ability to access the other stores in the general area is going to b a problem.
I only wish the employees the very best in their futures. Know that we hav!
e appreciated you
This is VERY disappointing – and I don’t even want to mention this to my wife – she LOVES New Leaf (and shops there exclusively)!
I am also wondering what could be done – and would participate in any email campaign that is organized, to try and convince the Santa Cruz Corporate office to reconsider. Then again, if the company has been purchased by another firm – then this plea may fall on deaf ears.
A sad day for local shopping…Rod
It’s still a B Corp: http://newleaf.com/about/
I’d participate in anything to keep it open. In the mean time, if you care, still send them an email at info@newleaf.com.
I drove over from Livermore to shop at New Leaf and am very disappointed to learn of the store’s closing.
365 by Whole Foods? It’s smaller affordable and healthy
Just a thought
This will be the end of the shopping center. The owner had long wanted high density housing, but the city said no. There will be no Trader Joes. It’s just a bad location for retail.
I am going to really miss New Leaf.
New Leaf has been the best thing that has happened to this neighborhood since I moved here a decade ago. For someone who uses public transportation and walks a lot, having a quality grocery store a 7 minute walk away has been key to my quality of life and ability to refrain from adding yet another vehicle to our neighborhood. I wish the folks who live in close proximity would have taken better advantage of this place while they had the chance. Having an empty eyesore of a strip mall helps nobody, particularly home owners. I wonder what will become of the martial arts studio, Montessori, froyo place, sushi place, gym, french bakery, etc. Now that the main reason why people visit this location is shutting its doors. Enjoy driving to Raley’s, Safeway, Trader Joe’s, etc. Vintage Hills residents, and buying their lower quality food.
Gene’s Fine Foods is a great grocery store on Valley Ave. They buy locally grown fruits and vegtables. Also a fabulous meat market counter.
Dear Pleasanton City Government,
If you spent so much money courting Costo, why couldn’t you have spent a few thousand (by comparison), trying to work with the vendor and the developer to keep New Leaf in business?
The new real estate development in the area surrounding the New Leaf Plaza is nearing completion, and I am betting that the remaining available land, close by, is in discussion for additional residential development.
Surely you could have taken the long view, and carried a portion of the tax/rent load for a good retailer until those projects were complete and occupied? Surely you did your part to help Pleasanton maintain a business? You assert that you are a pro-business local government. Can you tell your residents what steps you took to avoid this upcoming vacancy? Did you even talk to the corporate office of this company, and offer any alternative?
I, along with many others, would very much like to know.
This place was integrated into my schedule and lifestyle ever since they opened. Business was great by all accounts.Great people, loved chatting with them all. Nice store. Corporate mindset is selfish, is what it amounts to.
If it must go (sad face) sure would make a lovely spot for a small dog park….Truly would be great to not see yet another set of cramped, over priced apartments sitting there…Just saying…
Info@newleaf.com
I am so disappointed. There’s so much housing development that we should be able to make this amazing store work !
I heard the owner wants ridulous rent at 24 k a month . Driving this store out. Can’t Pleasanton city council make changes so they can afford to stay .
Please email new leaf and let’s see what needs to happen to get them to stay !!!
How can we make it happen?????
Great store really going to be missed, the place was packed yesterday looking for good deals. Well known fact that the property owner wants housing on that lot for the last 20 years so not too motivated to keep tenants, easier to bulldoze when you have empty retail spaces, this city council will probably give him what he’s been wanting for so long, maybe they could narrow bernal down to 1 lane to allow for more stack and pack housing on that site!!
Good grief I’ve been reading the comments and its if there was a death in the family!
New Leaf couldn’t compete, that’s it! Too high prices, given the “organic” label, coupled with too few customers added to high space rents leads to “Out-of-Business”.
Everyday stores close down because they can’t compete, its not the end of the world. Others will take their place and fill the vacuum. They always do!
What a tough day yesterday to hear that New Leaf is going belly up. We are avid shoppers of New Leaf products since the 1st day it opened its doors. The quality of products as well as the candidness of the employees who worked there will be dearly missed by our community.
I’m very disappointed hearing about the higher rent posed by landlords and the City Countil is not getting involved in this matter. Appears they do not care to have any high quality stores/restaurants in our wonderful city.
Given we have just found out the store is closing, is there anything we as a community can do to keep it here? City Council, wake up and smell the greed and put some rules into place for rent control for businesses. I see so much churn on mainstreet…our dear Tully, Tech Burrito and others have made it to the death bed because of silence from the City Council.
to keep it here? City Council, wake up and smell the greed and put some rules into place for rent control for businesses. I see so much churn on mainstreet…our dear Tully, Tech Burrito and others have made it to the death bed because of silence from the City Council.
I cant believe the blame game going on here. Its the developers fault, its the City Councils fault, blah blah. How about good old competition and not enough people shopping there? The location is not ideal to attract enough people and thats called Business Finance 101. And it was expensive for a lot of families. I can afford it and like the selection but frankly Im surprised it lasted this long. That site needs to be redeveloped.
I would love to see Trader Joe’s or Sprouts go in there. Please do not tear it down and build housing the area is already in gridlock and now with building 93 homes along First street and Stanley its just going to get much worse. Not to mention the new units across from McDonalds.
TRADER JOE’S ==== PLEASE!!!
This area just doesn’t support a grocery store. Too many shop the bigger chains and only use it as a specialty item purchase option. Given it’s organic, health food focus and higher prices, it was only a matter of time before it closed.
New Leaf did such a great job. I loved the convenience. And they so beautifully enhanced the environmental benefits of the neighborhood’s higher density housing.
I’m thinking that the rent was too high, or possibly the sewer hookup fees. These factors have driven out other center businesses, like the laudromat. Maybe the City could provide some financial relief as part of our Climate Action Plan. We had such a program to attract restaurants (another low margin business) to Downtown.
Another factor – the large size of the store. That’s a lot of square footage to turn into profit with food sales. Does Pleasanton need some rental recreational space to replace what we lost with Kottinger Place redevelopment? If the City shared the space (and rent), a smaller market might prove viable.
I hope City staff will do an exit interview with New Leaf to determine what went wrong and inform future policy!
I was shocked and saddened to hear about New Leaf closing. It was such a GREAT store in terms of customer service and the products offered. For those of us who eat local and organic it was a really nice alternative to Whole Pay-Check which is over-priced and a total zoo. Not to mention the fact a lot of Whole Foods 365 brands were been proven to be from China (and not organic) in an expose a year or so ago. I would have thought New Leaf was a boon to those living in the neighborhoods so close by. I am so sad to see this store go. It seems like Pleasanton can’t keep any of these businesses – first Fresh & Easy, now New Leaf. So, so sad that the rents are driving these companies out of business. You will be missed New Leaf. 🙁
I’ve always felt this would be a perfect location for Trader Joe’s. Never a fan of New Leaf.
This is really tragic, this is my neighborhood store.
After all those of years of sitting empty since Romley’s failed to finally have a new market there was so great. Why would they close this store right before that new Vintage project on Bernal was opening with all those new customers a block away? Someone at New Leaf corporate didn’t do their research on cutting this store. I doubt this is salvageable from a New Leaf standpoint, they’ve already set this in motion.
Let’s all e-mail campaign for a Whole Foods community market (the smaller versions) or Sprouts or Trader Joe’s… anything to give us another quality market in there!
I love New Leaf from the first day they opened. It is sad to see them go. I love supporting smaller businesses, instead of the Whole Foods, Trader Joe’s and Sprouts.
I think it’s the location. Signs on Stanley Blvd might help. A lot of people don’t know this wonderful store. I agree with the others, if they can wait a few more months for the apartment residences, they may have a chance. But, their management probably have done the math. They must be losing money every month.
How about the landlord give them a break on the lease. It was vacant for 15 years, before New Leaf came in.
To the Landlord and the city council, please lower the rent to keep New Leaf alive, than to have no tenant. Without New Leaf, the other stores will also struggle.
I liked New Leaf. It was too far away from me for my convenience in grocery shopping, but when I couldn’t find what I was looking for closer to home, I’d go there. It is a specialty style store, with unique items and boasts organic items, which I think pushed the Safeways and such, to start shelving more organic items. Competition does make it challenging these days for any business, but the location, I believe, kept it from growing as quickly as most businesses would want or project. Location is everything in business ~ Sorry to see you go ~ Thanks for housing our Art Critiques ~ and other Neighborhood clubs and groups.
I am so upset they are closing. This is our go to store almost daily since they opened. I agree with getting a petition or some kind of movement going to help save the store. I wish they just waited a little longer until the new developement right around the corner became occupied. Maybe people should call the City to voice their opinions on this. So sad.
Pleasanton’s racial demographics are changing and New Leaf’s decision to close is partly driven by the new demographic mix. A majority of the new tenants that will be attracted to the Bernal apartments will be Asian and Indian families moving from the South Bay in order to get their kids into Pleasanton schools. New Leaf does not necessarily appeal to those demographics. I wouldn’t be surprised to see a Ranch 99 or other Asian/Indian inspired market go into the space to cater to the growing population.
I am a member of the real estate community. New Leaf had extremely attractive rent; in fact it was 50% lower than the market for better space with higher traffic counts. The landlord decided to cut an incredible deal for them to make one last effort to save the shopping center. Everyone knows the previous retailers that couldn’t cut it there due to the lack of visibility and walk in traffic business. The traffic counts in that center are about 25% of what other grocers wanted.To my knowledge, the owner of the center has not covered the costs of improvements made to the center 5 years ago. Maybe a family coop grocer can survive or an operator who can take over the existing space with zero tenant improvements. I am not aware of any top retail leasing brokers who believe grocery can survive in that location.
I dont know why any one who is thinking correctly would suggest the City’s taxpayers bale out this commercial center to try to get more tenants or a different type of commercial user by reducing sewer fees or providing financial assistance. Hello??? Traders Joes would be moving here instead of Rose Pavillion if it made business sense. Let the free market determine what can be successful, and use our public money towards fixing streets, building parks, picking up garbage, and services for seniors, kids and others. But an Indian, Asian or Mexican grocery market serving the surrounding neighborhood might be another option instead of new houses.
Seems to me we should have developed the Stanley & Bernal site as retail, and the location of New Leaf as residential! Too late now.
The New Leaf site is a bit far from the traffic.
In all honesty, I drive past New Leaf every day, and I checked out the store soon after it opened, and I just wasn’t prepared to pay the high prices. Food quality was better than Safeway, but we still prefer Trader Joe’s here for the basics, Costco for stuff we need a lot of, and then for things not at either store, we shop around.
The new residential development at Stanley and Bernal may not attract the right demographic for New Leaf. But with that much additional population within walking distance, some sort of store should work out for that site, provided the landowner actually has an interest in earning rent.
The new ownership, New Seasons, wants to have their own presence in the Bay Area under their own name. They’ll be opening in Emeryville, I believe, and word is rhey couldn’t afford to open their Sunnyvale store without closing the Pleasanton location.
It’s crappy they gave employees two weeks notice Friday morning. I have two friends who walked in on the employee meeting as they were breaking the news to their staff. That’s not how a caring business takes care of their employees.
I wonder if the founder of New Leaf is regretting selling off his gem of a market chain right now. The local foods and wonderful staff made it such a special place for our neighborhood and I bet he would have worked to make it successful if they were hurting that much. I’m not saying it’s corporate greed but the new ownership is clearly sacrificing our neighborhood store in order to expand.
With hundreds of new units being built right down the street I would imagine they would have seen an uptick in business has they stuck around a little longer.
Ellen–Thanks so much for the info about New Seasons. I had filled in a comment form to New Leaf earlier today to say how much we will miss them and wish they could stay. Looking at the New Seasons website it’s obvious that the two names are owned by the same company now. Under their “Stores” tab, they have Sunnyvale and Emeryville listed as “coming soon.”
I will miss New Leaf greatly… I’ve lived in this neighborhood for 15 years now and was so happy when they arrived. It doesn’t feel as much a decision of the store not being successful as it does a decision of change in a corporate direction for the new owners with little consideration for the impact the decision has on so many others.
I was appreciative of New Leaf, but felt that a high end store could not survive up there. It was pricey and you do in fact get what you pay for. High prices, but very good quality.
Loved their gluten free, but didn’t make the drive to other side of town very much. So sorry to hear of it’s closing, especially for it’s employees.
I am really awaiting TJ’s opening in a place that has PARKING…. 🙂
Not quite sure what you expect the city to do, uf its not a zoning or infrastructure issue its not really a city problem. I think the city shoukd understand why they are closing to help the owner of the center attract a good tenant quickly, and perhaps help with the marketing / application / permitting process to expedite the right tenant, but other tgan that, not really a city problem
I have been shopping at New Leaf since it opened even though I worked at another grocery store that closed in 2015. I always buy all my Essential oils and other vitamins supplements here. I will miss them. I went on Saturday after the announcement was made and store was pretty empty. Stocked up on several of the items that have a long shelf life in the vitamin area. I went back on Sunday and the lot was jammed as was the store. the big 50% off signs were up.
I stated a conversation with someone in line while waiting-she stated this was her first time in the store yet lived within a mile of it since the store opened. Several others said the same thing. Never been in the store till yesterday. (same story I heard over and over again at Fresh and Easy in 2015).
Now if all you people that went to New Leaf yesterday for the first time just to get the good sales, maybe you should have been shopping there all along and this store wouldn’t be closing.
the whole shopping center will suffer and I can already see the country line dance hall coming back.
At the risk of repeating myself.. every 5 years or so.. the available parking makes the site attractive for the right businesses.. a grocery store obviously isn’t right. How about a 7/11 – gas station – teen center – night club – music venue – coffee kiosk.. better driveways to enter.
This is disappointing. Maybe their overhead would be lower if they had shut the lights off at closing time?
Looked up the sale; that was mentioned in 2011 and a done deal by 2013, if not before.
This was never a good place for shops or grocery stores. It looked awful for so many years when a lot of the shops were unoccupied. Residential development would be so much better for that area, or maybe even some kind of little park.
I wonder if New Leaf looked for a new location in town, and, if not, why not?
All the people begging for Trader Joe’s need to keep up with current events. As another poster mentioned, TJ is moving over to Rosewood and won’t be coming to the New Leaf site. I went to NL a few times but found their prices too high.
And for all you clueless people…quit hoping for a Trader Joe’s at the New Leaf site…they are (thankfully) moving to the old Fresh and Easy location…
Another Asian Supermarket would be a nice addition there.