Hundreds greet opening of Cheney Grocery Outlet - The year in review - top 10

CHENEY — The excitement began almost before Emeryville California-based Grocery Outlet filed paperwork to build a 16,456-square foot new store in Cheney.

In late March, Grocery Outlet proposed combining two separate parcels along North 1st Street as the site for the store. The proposal received the City Council’s blessing, and after awarding an easement along North 1st Street for utilities, work began on the new grocery store in the summer.

That work went fast, with site preparation closely followed in early fall by the building “going vertical” with construction of the structure itself. About that time, Duran Slater and his wife Cassie McManus were awarded the franchise by the corporation.

The couple, with ties to the Pacific Northwest, moved up from California and began the process of outfitting the store with staff and product in what ended up being an 11,000-square-foot addition to Cheney’s grocery offerings.

On Thursday morning, Nov. 21, an estimated crowd of over 300 people stood in line in freezing temperatures to be one of the first 200 through the front doors when they opened at around 8:30 a.m. As one of their first community acts, Slater and McManus’s store donated $1,500 to Cheney Outreach.

John McCallum can be reached at [email protected].