THINGS looked bleak after the Co-operative Food store in the Ayrshire seaside town of Troon burned down last year.
But last month the shop made a triumphant return to business, one of a total of five Scottish Co-operative Food shops to come on stream just ahead of Christmas.
There are new stores in Barry Road, Carnoustie and Milton Mill, Monifieth both near Dundee, and at Wester Inshes and Monarchs View in Inverness.
The re-launched Troon store, built on the same site as the destroyed original, opened on 9 December with the new stores launched a couple of days later on 12 December.
Between them, the five shops will provide more than 15,000sq ft of new retail space and will add about 80 new full and part-time jobs to Co-operative Food operations.
The convenience retailer currently has around 400 stores across Scotland.
Angela Phillip is manager at the Carnoustie site and Christian Croll is manager at Monifieth. Fiona Sewart runs the Inverness Wester Inshes outlet and Cheryl Baikie oversees the Inverness Milton of Leys store.
Store manager Brian Robertson runs the reopened store on Dundonald Road in Troon.
All five stores have licences. The Inverness and Tayside stores have in-house bakeries. The Inverness sites will have cash machines and car parks and the Milton of Leys outlet will have self-scan checkouts.
Opening hours for the Inverness and Troon stores are 7am-10pm. The Tayside stores are open 6am-11pm.
