Late last month, Schnuck Markets premiered a new specialty store called EatWell, A Natural Food Store by Schnucks — a concept that Chairman and CEO Todd Schnuck said had been in the making for some time.

The opportunity came when a store lease for Lucky’s Market, which was in Chapter 11 bankruptcy, went up for auction in Columbia, Mo. The site at 111 South Providence Rd. not only offered an attractive customer demographic — adjacent to the University of Missouri’s flagship campus — but Schnucks also already operated a supermarket in Columbia less than three miles away. So the St. Louis-based grocer acquired the leased store at the end of March.

“We thought that, ‘Here’s a real opportunity for us to step right into operating a natural food store,’” Schnuck told Supermarket News in a podcast interview. “And we liked Columbia because it’s a university town and already had an established customer base. So we thought it was a great way for us to take that first step.”

That site, too, just happened to be the previous location of the current Schnucks supermarket now at 1400 Forum Blvd. in Columbia.

“We’ve been in the Columbia market for over 50 years. Interestingly enough, this location is in the same shopping center where our original [Columbia] store was located. We opened in 1970, and then later we closed that store and moved to a bigger store about two miles away,” Schnuck said. “So we’re coming full circle, back to a location that’s closer to the university, closer to the student population and closer to the downtown area of Columbia.”