Photo by Mr. T in DC

When the Yes! Organic Market opened along Pennsylvania Avenue just across the Anacostia River in 2010, residents were happy to see another supermarket in a part of D.C. that only has three for its 140,000 residents.

But as the Post reports, that Yes! Organic Market is now set to close, mostly because it was impossibly hard to get to:

But Gary Cha, owner of the store, said despite a $900,000 grant from the District and his best efforts to make a profit, the store was losing so much money that he would close it later this year.

Cha built his local chain by opening stores in Adams Morgan, Capitol Hill, Cleveland Park, Brookland, Petworth, Hyattsville and U Street and has never closed one. He blamed himself for choosing a location to open that was difficult to access, particularly for shoppers driving west on Pennsylvania Avenue from neighborhoods east of the river. The parking lot could not be legally accessed by either left turns or U-turns.

“It’s a difficult place to get in and out,” he said. “That was something that I couldn’t overcome. I wanted to be the first — well I guess I was the first — organic market east of the Anacostia River. We wanted to be the first to offer healthy foods across the Anacostia River. And I tried to do that the best that I could. But that location, the way it is located, is very hard to get to.”

According to Cha, he never had a profitable month at the location, which is somewhat awkwardly situated along a stretch of road that ferries large amounts of traffic east and west along Pennsylvania Avenue.