The last of Sacramento's landmark Corti Brothers stores is to close this fall, but local gourmets may not long be without the specialty foodstuffs and exclusive wines that have distinguished the family-run grocery since 1947. Darrell Corti, the store's president, is vowing to remain in business at a new but undetermined location
"We haven't sold and we haven't been bought," said Corti a short time ago following early reports that the company had lost the East Sacramaento site it had occupied since 1970. Corti Brothers, founded in 1947 by brothers Frank and Gino Corti along 8th Street between I and J, had once expanded to four locations before cutting back to one large facility at 59th Street and Folsom Boulevard.
Corti said he just had been informed by his landlady that she'd signed a lease for the building with Mike Teel, an heir of the Raley's supermarket chain, who reputedly plans to use the site for a branch of his proposed group of Good Eats Grocery markets. Corti had been renting the building without a lease since 1988.
"We went to negotiate a lease and were informed by her lawyers that a lease (for the building) had been signed by somebody else," said Corti.
The search for a new site for the store will commence Tuesday, said Corti. He hopes to stay in the East Sacramento neighborhood, but will scout other areas for prospective locations. "We have a lot of old customers in that neighborhood," he remarked. Corti Brothers is to be out of its current site by Oct. 15, he noted.
A more comprehensive report on the pending relocation of Corti Brothers is being prepared by colleague Jim Downing for Tuesday's new Sacramento Bee.
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