It appears the end is near for a boutique style grocery store in downtown Windsor.
La Verns Market opened in the summer of 2021 at the corner of University Avenue West and Pelissier Street but shutdown earlier this year due to a pipe burst.
"You know everyday I go in there and I keep thinking maybe, maybe, maybe but it's a pretty rough recovery from this point," says owner Vern Myslichuk.
He says he had plans to reopen but is now thinking it's the end for the grocery store.
Myslichuk says he continues to look at options but it looks like the store will not be reopening.
"We just recently within the last three months we had about seventh inch pipe that burst on the seventh floor and we had probably the equivalent of an Olympic size swimming pool in the market and just completely devastated the whole market," says Myslichuk. "Like the market was just squashed."
He says it's a pretty difficult recovery for the store.
"For me to reinvest, I did it the first time around putting the money in there with high hopes and really just all gung ho but now to do it a second time and even with the insurance money, it's just a token in comparison to what is really needed for putting the store back in order," he says. "So it's not looking good for continuing that store."
Myslichuk says since opening, the grocery store has been plagued by a lot of incidents that set the project backwards.
"I was actually out of town at this time and I just got a call from staff saying that we had a leak and that leak really wasn't a leak," he says. "It was a torrential downpour. "When we opened up the cameras and we saw what was happening, it was pretty devastating."
It hasn't been easy for Myslichuk and his team since the opening of the grocery store.
Last year, Myslichuk expressed his frustration, after a six break-in in less than two years at the store.
Police arrested a man from Leamington after breaking into the shop to steal butter tarts.
At the time, police said, it was the second time in a three week span that the man had been arrested for breaking into the store.
The man was dubbed as the 'butter tart bandit.'