Marco's Pizza closes, Family Video winding down operations in Latrobe

Marco’s Pizza restaurant in Latrobe closed Monday, and the adjacent Family Video store is set to end operations by the end of June.

The phase-out of the two related stores is a result of the sale of the property they share on Depot Street, according to Stephanie Miller, assistant manager of Family Video locations in Latrobe and Greensburg. The Greensburg video store will continue business as usual, she said.

Family Video employees in Latrobe learned late last week of the plan to shutter that store, Miller said. The store ended video rental and is offering purchase of its remaining inventory of items.

“We’re hoping to have a lot of crossover business start to come to our (Greensburg) location,” she said, noting some customers who normally patronized the Latrobe store have traveled to or called the location on Greensburg’s South Main Street.

Customers who have a credit on their account at the Latrobe store can have it transferred to the Greensburg store.

The Latrobe closures are solely the result of a real estate deal, Miller said.

“It had nothing to do with our performance,” she said. “It was just where the building lies.”

Natasha Willforth, a sales associate at the Latrobe video store, said a number of the employees who will be affected by the closure have other jobs to fall back on.

“Outplacement services” are to be provided to workers displaced by the pizza shop closure, according to McLain Hoogland, who is director of operations at Highland Ventures Ltd. and oversees its brands, including Marco’s and Family Video. There are more than 700 Family Video stores in the U.S. and Canada.

Closing the pizza shop is “part of a larger real estate business initiative,” Hoogland noted in a prepared statement.

“We are reevaluating the property use and are in the process of deciding how we may repurpose this space in the future to better meet the needs of the community,” he said. “This was a difficult business decision because of all of the support we’ve received over these five years from the Latrobe, Pa., community, our customers and employees.”