Major grocery chain to close stores during the eclipse
File: Cars are seen parked in front of a Wegmans supermarket, November 2022. (Photo by Paul Weaver/SOPA Images/LightRocket via Getty Images)
ROCHESTER, N.Y. - If you’re hoping to grab a last-minute snack or treat during April’s solar eclipse, you may be out of luck – at least if you like to shop at Wegmans.
The popular New York-based grocery chain will be closing some stores for a half-hour during the event so that employees can enjoy it, too.
"The opportunity to experience a total solar eclipse comes once in a lifetime, and we don’t want our employees to miss out," Patrick Bourcy, a Wegmans regional manager, explained in a statement.
"We appreciate all that our employees do to help our customers prepare for and enjoy events like this, and in return, we welcome the opportunity to make this a celebratory and memorable occasion for them."
RELATED: How to get the best view of the solar eclipse
Wegmans operates 111 grocery stores along the East Coast, primarily in New York. That puts many of their stores in or near the path of totality, which will stretch through western Pennsylvania and upstate New York on April 8.
In all, the company is closing 48 stores between 3 p.m. and 3:30 p.m. that day:
New York state
Rochester:
- Brockport
- Calkins Road
- Chili-Paul
- East Avenue
- Eastway
- Fairport
- Holt Road
- Irondequoit
- Latta Road
- Lyell Avenue
- Marketplace
- Read
- Penfield
- Perinton
- Pittsford
- Ridge-Culver
- Ridgemont
Buffalo:
- Alberta Drive
- Amherst St
- Dick Road
- Jamestown
- Losson Road
- McKinley
- Military Road
- Niagara Falls Blvd.
- Sheridan Drive
- Transit Rd.
- West Seneca
Finger Lakes:
- Auburn
- Canandaigua
- Geneseo
- Geneva
- Ithaca
- Newark
Southern Tier:
- Corning
- Elmira
- Hornell
- Johnson City
Syracuse:
- Cicero
- Dewitt
- Fairmount
- Great Northern
- James Street
- John Glenn
- Onondaga
- Taft Road
Pennsylvania
Erie:
- Erie Peach St.
- Erie West
Total solar eclipse path
Projected path and time of totality for the 2024 total solar eclipse over the U.S.
The April 2024 solar eclipse will be visible, at least in part, to nearly everyone in the U.S. But the path of totality – where the moon will completely block the sun – is a 115-mile-wide region that stretches from southern Texas up through Ohio, western New York, then over to northern Maine.
Large cities in the path of totality include:
- Austin, Texas
- Dallas, Texas
- Little Rock, Arkansas
- Carbondale, Illinois
- Indianapolis, Indiana
- Cleveland, Ohio
- Buffalo, New York
- Rochester, New York
- Plattsburgh, New York
- Presque Isle, Maine
The farther you are from that path, less and less of the sun will appear to be blocked.
RELATED: Why some states have issued warnings ahead of the solar eclipse
What time is the solar eclipse?
The total solar eclipse on Aug. 21, 2017, was photographed from Madras, Oregon. The black circle in the middle is the Moon. Surrounding it are white streams of light belonging to the Sun’s outer atmosphere, called the corona. (NASA/Aubrey Gemignani)
Southern Texas will see the peak of totality first, around 1:30 p.m. Central Daylight Time. Then Dallas at 1:42 p.m., with the time getting later and later as the moon’s shadow moves north. Indianapolis will see the peak around 3:05 p.m. Eastern Daylight Time; Buffalo at 3:20 p.m., and northern Maine around 3:30 p.m.
However, it will take several hours for the moon to move across the sun, so the actual eclipse event will start just over an hour before the peak of totality, with more and more of the sun slowly being blocked.