NORTH ANDOVER — One door closes, another opens.
The old Market Basket closed late Thursday afternoon at the North Andover Mall.
One door down a bigger store opened early Friday to a throng of customers at the new Market Basket’s grand reopening.
All hands were on deck and all 22 checkout registers open for the splash.
A police presence loomed at the mall’s opposite ends — the entrance and exit — and in the parking lot as a precaution given some social media postings in response to the ongoing acrimony between the board of directors and CEO Arthur T. Demoulas, aka Artie T.
The board suspended him and his management team on May 28, and, later, on July 22 fired suspended executives Tom Gordon and Joe Schmidt.
At 8 a.m. Friday an army of store employees worked their stations in the 93,000 square-foot Market Basket in its new mid-mall location, 43% bigger than the former store.
Store Manager Mark Gouthier, a 47-year Market Basket veteran, stood just inside the store facing the checkout-registers.
At his back was the new Market’s Cafe, a coffee and ice cream bar.
“Need a bowl?” a cafe clerk asked a customer who ordered an ice cream cone. “Do you want kiddie sized?”
Gouthier had been at the closing of his old store the day before, and here at 3:45 a.m. Friday readying for the opening, advertised as 7 a.m. but actually opening an hour earlier.
He has 450 employees, about a quarter more than he had at the old store. He hired an extra 75-100 employees to staff the expanded kitchen, which makes hot meals and sandwiches, and the new cafe.
The old store got a lot of business, the registers checking out about 30,000 orders per week, Gouthier said.
That’s about 60,000 people shopping at the store per week, based on a national average of two people per order.
Customer traffic at the new store is expected to eclipse the former numbers, increasing to 35,000 orders and 70,000 customers weekly.
Managers in signature red jackets and assistant managers in blue jackets fielded customer questions, straightened shelves and surveyed the store-scape to make sure all was operating smoothly.
People, as many employees as customers it seemed, surged over the checkerboard white and coral floor tiles.
“Everyone’s happy,” Gouthier said, calling it a nice crisp opening, his eyes moving up and down the lighted checkout lines.
He had just spoken to a customer who was in the new store for the second time in the few short hours it had been open.
The scene’s fullness contrasted with the eerie emptiness at the old store 15 hours earlier.
One of the last shoppers at the old store, Frank Sapienza of Methuen, came not to buy but to see the old store one last time.
It was where he use to shop with his son when they were living in Lawrence.
The North Andover Mall Market Basket, Store No. 12, on the list of Market Basket’s 90 stores, draws customers from Lawrence, Andover and even Middleton as well as its North Andover shoppers.
In the new store Friday at 8 a.m. vendors handed out coupons and freebies including Little Debbie cakes and organic ketchup and Gatorade.
The Oakhurst and Hood dairy sales reps stood side by side in the expanded milk, yogurt and cheese section.
At 8 a.m., the seafood section had already sold 150 pounds of the $5.99 a pound lobster. It was far more than the 20-30 pounds sold by that hour on a normal Friday, said Rosa Pereira, deli supervisor for 15 stores, and 39 years working for Market Basket.
Outside, bunting hung from the roof edge atop the façade.
Customers parked between bright yellow stripes in the freshly paved black lot set with spanking-new grocery cart corrals.
Michael Burkhart of Lawrence was among the early birds.
He held a Market Basket coffee and loaded groceries in his vehicle. He was trying the Market Basket coffee for the first time and said it didn’t measure up to a Dunkin’ brew.
As a teen Market Basket was his first job and he stayed for years, even while he was apprenticing as a plumber in Methuen. He remembers seeing Arthur T. Demoulas at the store.
“He was always very nice — remembered your name,” Burkhart said. “It was a very family oriented business.”
What about the recent family feud and ensuing fireworks, is it influencing his choice of where to shop for groceries?
“I’ll just see how it goes,” Burkhart said.
Jen Jones of North Andover, a sixth-grade teacher at North Andover Middle School, said the new layout in a bigger store with more options takes a while to get your bearings.
The family feud is not altering her shopping habits.
She shops at Market Basket, and has not followed the goings-on closely.
Jones was excited to know what store will be moving into the old Market Basket site.
The family company’s real estate arm, DeMoulas Super Markets, shows on its website a HomeGoods home décor store and Marshalls Department store where the former Market Basket did business.
“Yeah,” she said, pumping her fists. “I really want a HomeGoods.”
The DSM website also shows an empty storefront on the south side of the new North Andover Mall Market Basket.
Some Market Basket sites — the company owns most of the strip malls where their stores are located — have their own liquor stores in adjoining buildings.
The North Andover Mall sits below busy Route 114 traveled by some 40,000 vehicles a day.
The regional transit authority, MeVa, is a near constant presence pulling in and out of the mall.
MeVa has a new bus stop, with a roof, just beyond the new store.
Bus driver Rigo Reyen said he and the other drivers will continue to pick up riders, as well, at the old stop, just beyond the old store, until the riders get use to the new spot.
This new Market Basket will follow two earlier stores at the mall. The first was built in 1968 and stood where TJ Maxx stands today.
The second store, at the north end of the strip, opened in 1981.
Meanwhile, the differences between Artie T. and the board will go before a mediator on Sept. 3 in an attempt to avoid litigation and the often unwanted publicity that high-profile court cases generate.
The board represents three Demoulas sisters, Caren, Frances and Glorianne, who own 60% of the company.
The last board member loyal to Arthur T. Demoulas, Bill Shea, was removed by the sisters from the board earlier this month.
Artie T., with 28% ownership, is a minority shareholder.
He and the board are battling over financial matters, direction and responsibilities.
The remaining 12% of the company’s ownership remains in trust.