A staple for many Disney guests and even college program participants, the Goodings grocery store in the Crossroads Plaza near Disney Springs and Hotel Plaza Boulevard is now closed permanently, along with several other businesses residing in the plaza, according to Orlando Weekly.
What’s Happening:
- Gooding’s Supermarket, once a prominent chain in the Central Florida area and considered the main rival to another chain, Publix, has permanently closed its last operating location in the Crossroads Shopping Plaza near Disney Springs.
- The store, along with the rest of Crossroads Plaza which it anchored, was built in 1988 as part of an expansion led by the Walt Disney Company that also included the new college program housing complex known as Vista Way.
- The plaza and Goodings were added to assist those college program students, as well as the nearby Disney Vacation Club resort, now known as Disney’s Old Key West Resort.
- This particular Gooding’s was the last in the chain, the first supermarket brand in Central Florida to be open for 24 hours, surviving by tourists due to its location just outside Walt Disney World property, even after the company had declared Chapter 11 bankruptcy twice in less than five years.
- Gooding’s is only the most recent closure in the plaza. The COVID-19 Pandemic has closed other businesses nearby, including Sweet Tomatoes, TGI Friday’s, The Knife, and Red Lobster.
- Crossroads has been the home to many popular locations for tourists, locals, and interns alike. Jungle Jim’s was a popular spot for years before it closed in early 2007, and the plaza was also home to the first and only McKids shopping location in the southeast, as well as major brands that continue to operate to this day like Taco Bell, Buffalo Wild Wings, and Perkins.
- Those already in the know might not consider this news as the plaza already has an expiration date. It was announced in 2018 that the plaza would close and eventually decided that in August of 2021, all the businesses in the plaza are to be cleared out as construction on the I-4 Ultimate Project would turn the plaza into a series of off-ramps and retention ponds off the famously congested freeway that would lead drivers directly onto Walt Disney World’s Hotel Plaza Boulevard.
