letter to whole foods

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  • 8/8/2019 Letter to Whole Foods

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    Li Zhen (Lee) Yu, Owner

    Jian An (John) Chen, Owner

    Tian Fu Restaurant

    446 Washington Street

    Wellesley, MA 20482

    September 20, 2010

    Laura Derba

    Regional President

    North Atlantic Region

    Whole Foods Market

    125 Cambridge Park Drive

    Cambridge, MA 02140

    Dear Laura,

    We read your recent letter to the Wellesley community. You have showed willingness to listen to, and

    dialog with, our community and us. We have been trying very hard during the past couple of months to

    have a direct dialog with Whole Foods, including sending a letter to you personally and to John Mackey,

    CEO. We had not heard from anyone at Whole Foods - no phone calls, no emails, no personal meetings,

    and no formal offers. Your letter is the first such open and direct communication. We were pleasantly

    surprised and encouraged.

    We are also impressed by the very fact that you were the first among the three parties of Whole Foods

    Market, Gravestar, Inc., and Supervalue, Inc. to write this letter to the Wellesley community. We wish theexecutives at Gravestar and Supervalue had showed their willingness to talk to the Wellesley community

    and to us directly. We have time and again expressed our interest to have a directly dialog with the

    executive management at Gravestar and Supervalue during the past few months. We appreciate it that

    you have finally responded and we are still waiting to hear from President of Gravestar and regional

    President of Supervalue.

    We were also quite encouraged by your statement Our genuine hope was that we could reach a

    resolution that would allow us to begin the process of building our new store while assisting Li Zhen Yu

    and Jian Chen in finding a location that would provide them many more years of success. As a small

    family restaurant, we welcome your presence at Wellesley Plaza. We have been here for eighteen years

    and had five ownership changes with the previous grocery stores that we subleased the space from. We

    have always maintained a good relationship with these five owners and we can only hope we can continue

    such a good relationship with Whole Foods. We need your support.

    We have been told that there is no way that we can stay at our current location and nobody has bothered

    to explain why. This is a big mystery for us and for the Wellesley community. We have been here for

    eighteen years and have co-existed very well with the other five grocery store owners. Why cannot we

    continue with Whole Foods? Additionally, nobody has explained to us why we cannot rent the empty

    building in the same plaza, formerly occupied by Rite Aid. Perhaps you can help us understand.

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    Wellesley community is like a family to us. We suffered as young kids growing up during the Cultural

    Revolution in Shanghai, China, when our parents were shipped away to labor camps. We grew up like

    orphans if not for the generosity of our family of friends and community in Shanghai. When we first

    landed in the U.S., the Wellesley community took us in with open arms and made us feel like home. The

    community has been very generous to us that we have made a happy living here for eighteen years

    operating our restaurant. We have thousands of loyal customers. They are more than our customers.They are our friends and our family. We are very grateful that more than two thousands of them have

    signed petitions for us to stay. We have tried, but cannot find suitable new locations in Wellesley. For us

    to uproot and lose our family of friends in Wellesley is extremely difficult for us. We hope this helps you

    understand why we want to stay and need to stay in Wellesley.

    We would like to invite you, your family, and your management team to come and dine with us at Tian Fu

    Restaurant. We will personally cook, and treat you to, an authentic home-made Shanghai cuisine. Lets

    sit down and talk like fellow human beings. Lets put our differences aside for a day and try to understand

    each other. We know that Whole Foods wants to grow and expand your business in Wellesley. We are

    happy about it and support it. We want to continue with our restaurant in Wellesley, so that we can make

    a living, pay our mortgages and our sons college tuition. Without this restaurant, our life will be

    devastated. There has to be a way for us to work this out for the best of both of us.

    We await anxiously your reply and look forward to meeting with you in person.

    Best Regards,

    Li Zhen (Lee) Yu

    Jian An (John) Chen

    CC:

    John Mackey, CEO, Whole Foods Market

    Walter Robb, Co-Chief Executive Officer

    Dr. John B. Elstrott, Director, Board of Directors

    Walter Robb, Director, Board of Directors

    Gabrielle Greene, Director, Board of Directors

    Hass Hassan, Director, Board of Directors

    Stephanie Kugelman, Director, Board of Directors

    Jonathan A. Seiffer, Director, Board of Directors

    Morris Siegel, Director, Board of Directors

    Jonathan D. Sokoloff, Director, Board of Directors

    Dr. Ralph Z. Sorenson, Director, Board of Directors

    William A. (Kip) Tindell, III, Director, Board of Directors

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