Des Plaines Joe Caputo & Sons Store, 2 Other Locations Sell for $32 Million

DES PLAINES, IL - The owners of Piggly Wiggly grocery stores bought the remaining Joe Caputo & Sons grocery stores for $32 million during a public auction Thursday, according to a news release from Paine/Wetzel TCN.

It’s unclear at this point if the remaining stores will become Butera or Piggly Wiggly stores, or something else, when the new owners take over operations starting this summer, the Daily Herald reports. The Caputo stores will remain open through the transition.

The three properties include a total of 267,000 square feet of retail space on 30 acres, according to the news release.

The auction Thursday came months after a federal lawsuit claimed the grocery chain's Elk Grove Village store didn't pay for $3.6 million in produce from a wholesaler, according to Crain's. That store had only just opened in November 2015 and then closed in February after a judge gave the wholesaler control over the chain's assets in order to pay off the debt.

Unrelated to the lawsuit, Caputo & Sons—which opened in 1989 as a single Des Plaines store—also closed stores in Arlington Heights and Northbrook in November of last year.

More on Patch

• Joe Caputo & Sons Closes Two Stores in Chicago Suburbs
• Joe Caputo & Sons' Palatine Store Heads to the Auction Block