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Gray’s American Foods has closed its store in Stockholm’s Gamla Stan.

The other store, on Odengatan in central Stockholm, is still there, and the person who answered the phone told me they have no plans to close. He said the rent was too high in Gamla Stan.

I am, however, informed by a reliable source that the reason the store in Gamla Stan closed was because the owners had not paid the rent.

All this seems to reflect a disastrous move to franchising by the original Gray’s. They decided to give up retailing and continue as distributors. They reportedly sold the Odengatan store to the owner of the Gamla Stan store.

Besides the two stores in Stockholm the original Gray’s also distributed a narrow selection of their American products to more than a hundred grocery stores around Sweden, from ICA and Coop to Vi. That continues.

The owner of the current stores has failed miserably in keeping them stocked. You would go in and the shelves were empty. My source says they had not been paying the original Gray’s for deliveries, which is why no more stock was appearing on the shelves.

There has been reaction on web forums to the current empty nature of the store.

The original Gray’s apparently still has a major assortment at the English Shop in Söderhallarna, near Medborgplatsen.

They also have a store in Töckfors, in Värmland near the Norwegian border. Emily Gray told me in an e-mail that they plan to start a webshop, but according to their revamped and minimalistic website that activity is still under construction. Hopefully it will be up and running by the end of the month, says Emily Gray.

Gray’s has been the best, virtually the only, source for many foods for Americans here in Sweden. Where else could we buy our Rice-a-Roni, our Mexican beans, our fudge syrup and blueberry pancake mix? (The guy at the Odengatan store told they didn’t even have any Mexican beans or Rice-a-Roni in stock.)

Praise for the original Gray’s from the USDA!