Di Bruno Bros. to close three of its five gourmet markets
The parent company says it's "refocusing." Locations in Wayne, Ardmore, and Center City will shut down in coming weeks.
Three of the five Di Bruno Bros. locations will close in the coming weeks, the specialty grocery chain’s owner confirmed to The Inquirer.
Maureen Gillespie, a spokesperson for Wakefern Food Corp., the New Jersey-based supermarket cooperative that acquired the Di Bruno’s brand in 2024, said closing dates were not available.
Employees at the Ardmore Farmer’s Market location, which opened in 2011 at Suburban Square, said they were told that its last day would be Feb. 4. Staff at the locations in Wayne, which opened in 2021 in Strafford Shopping Center, and at the Franklin Residences on Ninth Street in Center City, which opened in 2013, said they were notified Wednesday that those stores would shut down Feb. 11.
Di Bruno’s original location on Ninth Street in South Philadelphia and the two-level store at 18th and Chestnut Streets will remain.
In a statement, Gillespie said the company was “refocusing” Di Bruno’s market strategy on “the heart of the brand”: its Italian Market and Rittenhouse locations and “growing online business.” Concentrating on the two flagship stores and online business will be “a positive reset that allows us to preserve and elevate the in‑store tradition while growing the brand’s reach in meaningful new ways," Gillespie said.
Jobs will be offered to every retail employee, said a Sandy Brown, executive vice president of Di Bruno’s parent company, Brown’s Super Stores, the regional grocery chain founded by her husband. The news follows this week’s announcement that Amazon Fresh stores would close, putting about 1,000 people out of work at the six Philadelphia-area stores.
The three affected stores share the same core Di Bruno’s DNA: cheese, charcuterie, and specialty groceries. The Ardmore Farmer’s Market location is the most “grab-and-go”: a compact counter where bagels and schmear, coffee, and quick bites sit alongside the cheese-and-cured-meat staples. Wayne is more of a full-on neighborhood market with the familiar cheese and charcuterie counters plus a cafe, Roman-style pizza, and an on-site bar for wines and small plates. The outpost at the Franklin, 834 Chestnut St., is the most Center City-practical and office-friendly. It has a coffee bar, sandwich shop, and petite bottle shop — suitable for lunch runs, last-minute gifts, and commuter provisions.
The five Di Bruno’s stores were acquired in April 2024 by corporate entities controlled by Brown’s Super Stores. Six months later, Wakefern acquired the Di Bruno’s trademark and branded products.
At the time, Wakefern said it expected to grow the Di Bruno brand and take it “to the next level.” In December 2024, Brown’s Super Stores said it planned to open an additional 12 to 15 Di Bruno stores in the coming decade.
Di Bruno’s is a unit of Wakefern, whose 45 member companies own and operate more than 380 retail supermarkets. The company generated $20.7 billion in retail sales during the 2025 fiscal year, a 3.1% increase over the prior year.
The 2024 acquisition of Di Bruno Bros. turned heads in the grocery world, as the Brown family supermarkets like ShopRite and the Fresh Grocer operate in a considerably different fashion than Di Bruno’s specialty model.
Italian immigrant brothers Danny and Joe Di Bruno opened the first Di Bruno’s store in Philadelphia’s Italian Market in 1939. The grandsons and nephews of the founders took over in 1990 and grew the brand. In 2005, the cousins opened the first store outside South Philadelphia at 18th and Chestnut Streets.
Clarification: A comment from Sandy Brown, executive vice president of Brown’s Super Stores, was added to this article after publication to explain that affected Di Bruno’s employees would be offered other jobs.