MONTREAL — After 25 years of being a community staple, the Rocky Montana produce market on Sherbrooke Street is set to close its doors for the final time on Saturday, May 14.
Owner Ramesh Velauthapillai explained that a disastrous real estate deal, coupled with the small scale of the market, has caused him to lose everything.
The market first opened in June 1991, and quickly became popular because it offered organic produce and goods before it was trendy.
Velauthapillai bought the entire building that housed the market in 2007, and doubled the size of his store shortly afterward.
Problems arose when he found out the building needed $250,000 of structural repairs.
Velauthapillai bought it without a guarantee and had to sell it in 2014 for $1.7 million – $600,000 less than what he had paid – and his store shrunk in half.
“I lost over half a million dollars,” Velauthapillai told Global News.
A crowd funding page was set up to raise money for the grocer, not to save the store, but to give him a cushion as he figures out what he’s doing next.
“I didn’t think that anyone but NDGers would really care,” said Danielle Levy, a blogger and nutrition practitioner who started the site.
“But a lot do.”
According to Velauthapillai, customers from long ago still come back, even if they don’t live in NDG anymore.
“They come back here and they’re supporting us, ” he said.
“We are like a family.”
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