Fast-growing convenience store chain Parker’s is closing this Port Royal store. Here’s why

Fast-growing gas station and convenience store chain Parker’s Kitchen is opening new stores right and left as part of an ambitious expansion. That’s why a demolition of a Parker’s at the busy intersection at Ribaut Road and Lady’s Island Drive in Port Royal is turning heads.

The town of Port Royal issued the demolition permit to a contractor for Drayton-Parker Companies LLC, which develops Parker’s Kitchen stores, to tear down the building and heavy equipment operators have been on the scene these week.

Parker’s Kitchen issued this statement about the closure:

“We recently made the difficult decision to close our store at 1451 Ribaut Road in Port Royal, which did not meet our brand standards,” the statement says, “and hope that future development at this site will serve the community’s needs in Port Royal.”

Now the property is listed for sale, meaning a new use will be coming to the highly visible location eventually.

Parker’s is expanding into new markets including Myrtle Beach, Columbia and Jacksonville, Fla. The company employs 1,600 people in Georgia and South Carolina.

Last month alone, the Savannah-based company celebrated the opening of two new stores — a 200,000 square-foot store at Beaufort Station, the new Beaufort shopping center at 311 Robert Smalls Pkwy. in Beaufort, and at Moncks Corner, which is north of Charleston in Berkeley County.

The new stores were the company’s 95th and 96th stores overall and the 44th and 45th in South Carolina. There are 17 stores in Beaufort County.

Despite the demolition of the building and the sale of the property at 1451 Ribaut Road, Parker’s will continue to have a strong presence in the Port Royal area. Another Parker’s is located at Ribaut Road and Paris Avenue, about a mile south of the Lady’s Island Road-Ribaut Road site where the store is being torn down. Other nearby stores are located on Parris Island Gateway and the Old Savannah Highway and on Sams Point Road on Lady’s Island.

Parker’s was changed to Parker’s Kitchen when the company began emphasizing its food service. Some older stores retain the “Parker’s” signs and do not have kitchens but they are still owned by Parker’s Kitchens. The Port Royal station that closed was an older store without a kitchen.

Parker’s also is the name of 11 coastal Georgia stores owned by Patrick Parker, the brother of Parker’s Kitchen CEO Greg Parker.