Tuesday, January 27, 2026

Amazon Fresh to Close East Pasadena Store in Nationwide Exit From Physical Grocery Retail

The California locations will remain open longer than stores in other states under state labor notification requirements

Amazon will close the Amazon Fresh grocery store in East Pasadena as part of a companywide decision to shut down all of its Amazon-branded physical grocery stores, the company announced Tuesday.

The store at 3425 East Colorado Boulevard is among 72 Amazon Fresh and Amazon Go locations nationwide that will close. Most stores will shut their doors February 1, but California locations—including Pasadena—will remain open longer to comply with the state’s requirement that employers provide 60 days’ advance notice before mass layoffs or closures.

The store opened September 15, 2022, drawing lines of eager shoppers and a ribbon-cutting ceremony attended by Councilmember Gene Masuda and Los Angeles County Supervisor Kathryn Barger. At the time, Masuda called it a welcome addition to his East Pasadena district.

“It means a lot,” Masuda said at the September 2022 opening. “The residents will have another new and exciting place to go shopping and a different experience.”

Amazon said Tuesday that despite “encouraging signals” from its Amazon-branded stores, the company had not found a sustainable model for expansion.

“We haven’t yet created a truly distinctive customer experience with the right economic model needed for large-scale expansion,” the company said in a blog post announcing the closures.

The company said it will help affected employees find other positions within Amazon. The Pasadena store had approximately 150 employees when it opened; Amazon has not disclosed current staffing levels.

Some closed locations will be converted to Whole Foods Market stores, Amazon said, though the company has not specified which sites. Amazon plans to open more than 100 new Whole Foods locations over the next several years and will continue operating Amazon Fresh as an online grocery delivery service in more than 5,000 U.S. cities.

The closure marks the end of Amazon’s six-year experiment with Amazon-branded physical grocery stores, which began in 2020 with the first Amazon Fresh in Woodland Hills. The company acquired Whole Foods in 2017 for $13.7 billion.

The Pasadena store is located in a shopping center that includes Mountain Mike’s Pizza, Poppy Bank, and several other tenants. The property is managed by Cypress Real Estate Advisors.

Amazon has not announced the exact closure date for California stores. Under the state’s Worker Adjustment and Retraining Notification Act, the Pasadena location would likely remain open until early to mid-March.