After brief introduction in Pierce County, this retailer is calling it quits
AI-generated summary reviewed by our newsroom.
- Amazon will close Amazon Go and Fresh physical stores and expand Whole Foods nationwide.
- Company will keep Amazon Fresh online and pursue large-scale Whole Foods growth.
- Local Pierce County Go stores opened 2023 in East Pierce County.
Just a few weeks into 2026, and the year is seeing the end of two retail chains.
Amazon announced Tuesday it was closing its Amazon Go and Amazon Fresh brick-and-mortar stores and would convert “various locations” to Whole Foods Market, the grocery chain it acquired in 2017.
In a release, the e-retail giant stated that it was focusing on online grocery delivery and expanding Whole Foods with more than 100 new stores “over the next few years, including expansion of Whole Foods Market Daily Shop, providing a broad selection of natural and organic groceries at a great value to customers.”
In Pierce County, there is one Whole Foods Market, 3515 Bridgeport Way W., University Place. Amazon invested in two Go convenience stores in East Pierce County — 15518 Meridian E. and 17710 Canyon Road E., in 2022. The chain had been trimmed to under 20 U.S. locations by last year.
Geekwire on Tuesday reported the final day for most Amazon Fresh and Amazon Go locations will be Sunday, Feb. 1. California stores will stay open longer because of state labor notification requirements. A call to the number provided to one of the local Amazon Go stores directed callers to a general phone tree focused on account issues.
The News Tribune reported on the opening of the Frederickson Place store in 2023, noting it offered Amazon package return and self-serve Pinkberry Fro-yo among its features.
Its South Hill location opened later that year.
A Worker Adjustment and Retraining Notification filed Jan. 28 with the state of Washington listed 30 workers in Pierce County affected by the closures out of a total of 401 affected workers with Go and Fresh stores in the Puget Sound region.
“While we’ve seen encouraging signals in our Amazon-branded physical grocery stores, we haven’t yet created a truly distinctive customer experience with the right economic model needed for large-scale expansion,” the company said in its release.
The Amazon Fresh brand will continue to live online for orders in available areas, it noted, adding it was working to help employees at these sites find roles elsewhere in the company, “including across our vast operations network, as we make this transition.”
The company used the Go stores in helping to create its “Just Walk Out” checkout-free technology, which has been adopted “in over 360 third-party locations across five countries,” it added.
No new permit filings for redevelopment were on record as of Tuesday for either of the local Amazon Go locations.
Amazon still plans to open a big-box store, reportedly larger than a typical Walmart Supercenter, outside of Chicago. That store would offer groceries, household goods and general merchandise.
This story was originally published January 27, 2026 at 12:23 PM.
