When Whole Foods opened a grocery store in Englewood in 2016, its arrival, supported by $10.7 million in city funding, was heralded with live music and TV cameras. Seven years later the store’s replacement, a Save-A-Lot operated by grocery company Yellow Banana, opened with a whisper in the wake of a wave of community opposition.

Joe Canfield, the CEO of Yellow Banana, told the Tribune the store, at 832 W. 63rd St., opened for business Thursday morning.

Ald. Stephanie Coleman, 16th, said she had not been notified of the opening.

“How disappointing,” Coleman said when reached by phone on Thursday. “They’ve yet again proven that they don’t respect community,” she said.

Community members’ concerns about the Save-A-Lot brand have centered around the quality of its food — with some community leaders saying they have seen rotten produce or expired foods at its stores — and its facilities.

Yellow Banana postponed a previously scheduled opening for the store in April after a protest by community members.

Coleman said she had visited the company’s store on 63rd Street in the West Lawn neighborhood recently. “There’s rotten fruit. There’s a stench in their store,” she said.

The company has acknowledged Save-A-Lot’s poor reputation in Chicago and has said it is working to do better. It plans to renovate five Save-A-Lots it operates on the city’s South and West sides with the help of $13.5 million it was awarded by the city last year. That funding will also be used to reopen a store in the Auburn Gresham neighborhood that shuttered in 2020.

“We have owned the shortcomings of the brand over the years,” Canfield said. “We’re really focused on moving forward.”

“I think the upgrades to the stores will help us specifically on produce because we do have some dated refrigeration in our stores,” Canfield said. “That’s part of why we went out and got the additional capital to improve the stores.”

Some community leaders have suggested Yellow Banana should break their lease for the location, which is being subsidized by Whole Foods. Canfield said Thursday that was not on the table.

“We felt like it was best for us to just open the doors and let the community decide for themselves,” he said.

Work on the shuttered Auburn Gresham Save-A-Lot and on an operating store in the West Garfield Park neighborhood will begin in about two weeks, he said. Yellow Banana hopes to complete renovations at all the stores by the end of October.

Yellow Banana, which is owned by the Cleveland-based investment firm 127 Wall Holdings LLC, operates nearly 40 Save-A-Lot stores nationally. The company is not permitted to change the name of the Englewood Save-A-Lot, Canfield said. About 60% of the food at its Chicago locations will be sourced from Save-A-Lot. The Englewood store will feature a coffee bar and a hot foods area, which are not yet open.

Asiaha Butler, the CEO of the Resident Association of Greater Englewood, or R.A.G.E., said she found out about the opening of the store from a reporter. Butler said she had not heard from Yellow Banana since a community meeting held last week at which residents voiced their concerns about the store.

“They really act as if they had taken our concerns and our questions,” she said. “And they still just undermine community voice and community concern.”

Canfield said Thursday the company erred by not including certain community stakeholders who voiced opposition to the store in initial conversations about its opening. News that the former Whole Foods, which closed last year, would become a Save-A-Lot became public in January.

“There was some people that were not a part of that initial engagement that felt like they were excluded,” he said.

Earlier this week, South Side residents shopping at an Aldi just east of the new Save-A-Lot on 63rd Street had mixed opinions on the new store.

Arthur Chapital, who lives near the store, described the backlash to the Save-A-Lot as “political.”

“I shop at Save-A-Lot,” Chapital said. “The meat is so-so, but the produce is decent.”

“With all the criticism that Save-A-Lot’s been getting,” he said, “I’m sure they’re gonna be really on top of things.”

Tia Harvey said she was unlikely to shop at the new Save-A-Lot. Fruit there is sometimes moldy, she said, and other produce seems to go bad quickly.

Harvey preferred the Whole Foods — she remembers buying fresh fruit smoothies with ginger there — but said she still thought the Save-A-Lot should open, pointing to the recent closure of city Walmarts and a shooting outside an Englewood Food 4 Less.

“We’re probably going to need more grocery stores,” Harvey said.

Coleman said Thursday she was not convinced by the company’s pledge to improve its stores.

“There’s a saying, you can put lipstick on a pig,” Coleman said. “It’s still a pig.”