ELLISVILLE — It would appear that these are not good times for selling burgers made from Kobe beef.

Or 318 varieties of cooking oil. Or 12-month-aged Manchego cheese.

Those are just a few of the delicacies featured at Straub's Market in Ellisville, which the grocer will close at the end of the month, less than a year after opening it to much fanfare.

The 40,000-square-foot store, at the intersection of Clayton and Clarkson roads, is a monument to great food. It boasts a two-story cafe, an 1,100-bottle wine room and a cornucopia of choice meats, cheeses and produce.

But the store opened last December, in the teeth of the worst economic downturn in a generation, and it never did the kind of business Straub's needed to keep it open, said Trip Straub, the company's vice president.

"We were very excited to open this one-of-a-kind store," he said in a statement issued Tuesday. "Unfortunately, the timing didn't cooperate as the economy bottomed out and competition in the area grew."

Indeed, the grocer probably couldn't have picked a worse moment for its first new store since 1966, said Bill Bishop, chairman of Willard Bishop, a Chicago-based retail consulting firm. He called the last 12 months a "triple witching hour" for high-end grocers, with prices falling for meat and dairy goods, steep competition and cash-strapped shoppers trading down to cheaper stores.

"That's a really tough situation to be in," Bishop said. "The timing couldn't have been anticipated. But it couldn't have been worse."

The closing will cost about 50 Straub's employees their jobs, the company said. Many workers will be transferred to other stores, though less-experienced staffers will be laid off to make room.

Jim Dougherty, president of the United Food and Commercial Workers Local 655, which represents 25 workers at the store, said Straub's had been cutting back in recent months. Earlier this year, it employed 120 people in Ellisville, according to its website.

It's unclear how big a blow the closing will be for the 108-year-old family-owned company — Straub did not return calls seeking comment Tuesday — but the Ellisville store was clearly a major investment. It was three times the size of Straub's next-largest location and a bid by the grocer to strengthen its grip on a local gourmet food market that Schnucks and Dierbergs want a piece of, too.

Still, the other four Straub's locations will remain open, and the grocery plans to use what it has learned with the larger Ellisville store and "incorporate the very best of the experience" elsewhere, Straub said.

Bruising competition was likely also a factor.

The store is in a new shopping center on Clayton Road, in a growing stretch of west St. Louis County, but relatively close to a Whole Foods and a Trader Joe's and across the street from a Dierbergs. And in June, Ballwin officials approved a new 41,000-quare-foot Schnucks store less than a mile up the road.

For Straub's to open amid that sort of competition is tough, said James Fisher, a marketing professor at St. Louis University, especially in a weak economy.

"With any new retail outlet, there's some curiosity," Fisher said. "But that curiosity needs to be bolstered by spending power and confidence. ... A Straub's is going to have to have pretty remarkable drawing power."

And apparently it just didn't draw.

The store was quiet Tuesday afternoon, with perhaps two dozen shoppers at 4:30, milling past the wooden display cases and stands of pumpkins and fall flowers.

One was Kristina Ross, of Wildwood. She usually shops at Walmart or Dierbergs but likes to stop in at Straub's for special occasions. When she has, she said, it's never been crowded.

"It's a shame," Ross said. "They've got great stuff. But it's hard for everybody in today's society."

Robert Kelly of the Post-Dispatch contributed to this report.