A discount grocery chain is moving into the building that Rite Aid left behind in Silverton, turning a vacant pharmacy at 626 McClaine St. into the town's newest place to shop for bargain groceries. Grocery Outlet plans to debut the new store on August 20, according to a spokesperson, occupying the former Rite Aid pharmacy at the corner of McClaine and C streets.
The Silverton location will be run by local operators Ashley Landis and Jairy Weycker, who plan to mark the grand opening with a $1,000 donation to the Silver Family Falls YMCA, according to The Oregonian/OregonLive. The City of Silverton's business licensing registry listed Silverton Grocery Outlet at that address as an active retail grocery business under licensee Ashley Landis as of July 2026, according to the City of Silverton. Municipal records also show the city noted in a November 2025 monthly report that Grocery Outlet had already submitted building permits to convert the shuttered pharmacy into a discount grocery store, per the city's report.
Rite Aid's Collapse Left the Building Empty
The Silverton store sat vacant after Rite Aid shuttered all of its remaining pharmacy locations last fall, per the OregonLive report. That closure was part of a larger unraveling: Rite Aid's bankruptcy proceedings in 2025 led to court-approved closures or pharmacy file transfers across more than 30 Oregon locations, including its Silverton store, according to the Seaside Signal. Rite Aid had operated roughly 50 stores across Oregon before its second bankruptcy filing.
Nationally, the damage was even steeper. After two Chapter 11 filings in less than two years, Rite Aid liquidated its remaining assets and shut down its final retail locations by October 2025, as reported by CBS News. The chain once operated more than 5,000 stores nationwide at its peak, leaving behind a wave of empty suburban boxes now being scooped up by discount and off-price retailers from coast to coast — including a former Napa Rite Aid and similar backfills covered by Hoodline in recent months.
Grand Opening Perks and Giveaways
Grocery Outlet is headquartered in California and keeps prices low by buying overstock and closeout goods in bulk, according to the company's website. To mark the Silverton debut, the first 100 customers will receive a mystery Bliss Bucks gift card worth up to $500, per the OregonLive report. Shoppers during the store's first week will also get reusable bags while supplies last, and customers can enter to win $1,000 in free groceries through September 18.
Silverton sits less than half an hour outside Salem and about 15 miles from the state capital, placing the new store within easy reach of the Mid-Willamette Valley. The closest existing Grocery Outlet locations to Silverton are two stores in Salem and one in Molalla, meaning residents previously had to drive to shop the chain's closeout deals.
A Town With Deep Grocery Roots
Silverton already has a notable place in Oregon's grocery history. The city was the birthplace of Roth's Fresh Markets, where co-founders Herman C. Jochimsen and Orville N. Roth opened their first supermarket on August 5, 1962, according to Roth's Fresh Markets. That chain has since grown to nine stores across the Mid-Willamette Valley. Until now, Silverton residents relied primarily on the Safeway at 301 Westfield Street and the Roth's Fresh Market at 918 N. First Street for full-service grocery shopping.
The city's population stood at 10,456 residents as of 2024 Census Bureau estimates, with a median household income of $79,960, according to data compiled by Data USA. That demographic profile places Silverton squarely within the kind of mid-sized Oregon community where Grocery Outlet has concentrated its growth.
Expansion Amid a National Trim
Grocery Outlet operates hundreds of independently owned stores nationwide, including nearly 70 locations throughout Oregon, giving the state the highest per-capita concentration of Grocery Outlet stores in the country — one store for every 65,900 residents, according to location-tracking data compiled by ScrapeHero. Only California and Washington have more total locations. The Silverton opening comes even as the company works through a broader correction: in March 2026, Grocery Outlet announced plans to close 36 underperforming stores nationwide after acknowledging overexpansion, while still targeting 30 to 33 net new openings for the year, according to the Los Angeles Times. The company reported a net loss of $225 million for fiscal year 2025.
That trimming has already touched Oregon directly. Grocery Outlet previously closed its store in Portland's Parkrose neighborhood this year, per the OregonLive report, even as it opens new locations like Silverton's. Each Grocery Outlet store operates under an independent operator profit-sharing agreement with corporate, a structure the company highlighted in June when it launched its 16th annual Independence from Hunger campaign, collecting store donations for regional food banks across Oregon and the country.
For Silverton, the arrival adds a budget-focused option to a grocery market long dominated by conventional chains — a shift playing out in similar form elsewhere, from a Squirrel Hill Rite Aid turned kosher market to off-price retailers filling former pharmacy boxes in Lynnwood and Los Angeles. Whether Silverton shoppers embrace the closeout model on McClaine Street the way they have Roth's and Safeway remains to be seen once the doors open on August 20.
