Neighborhood celebrates new grocery store
in north Minneapolis
Terry Collins, Star Tribune
Published June 7, 2003
Not even pouring rain could dampen spirits
Friday during a grand opening celebration
ceremony for Houston's Neighborhood
Supermarket, a new black-owned grocery
store in north
Minneapolis.
Because, according to its owners,
they're in it for the long
haul.
"We're not going anywhere," co-owner
Tony Byers said of the store that
opened April 14. "We've been a part of
the community in other capacities. We
were raised here. We're doing something
that comes natural to us."
No strangers to the predominately
black community, co-owners Silas
Houston, Paul Bauknight and Byers
know the area well. Houston is the
chief financial officer of Bauknight
Associates Inc., the architecture firm
owned by Bauknight that built the new
Minneapolis Urban League headquarters
on Plymouth Avenue N. Byers is an
administrator at Dunwoody College of
Technology in Minneapolis and a
organizational management consultant.
When Houston found out last October
that the owner of Marche's SuperValu
was putting his longtime north Minneapolis
store up for sale, he saw it as an
opportunity to generate more jobs
in the area.
Houston spent nearly two months
trying to persuade Bauknight and
Byers to invest. The trio bought the
store two months ago.
"It's all about having a positive
influence in the community," said
Bauknight, who is the board president
of NorthWay Community Trust, a
grass-roots nonprofit group formed to
improve fiscal and housing conditions
in north Minneapolis. "This is another
example of local businesspeople doing
something good."
Starting next month, Houston and Byers
also will operate another grocery store,
the former Sullivan's SuperValu at
501 W. Broadway. And the pair -- along
with Bauknight -- plan to take over a
supermarket in North St. Paul later
this month.
Their second Minneapolis store is in
the Broadway Center shopping complex
near Interstate 94, next to the s
oon-to-be vacated Target
store.
With stores such as Target ready to
bolt the neighborhood, Houston said
his business partners clearly
understand the leadership role their
stores will play -- "besides selling
food at reasonable
prices."
They hope that their presence will
encourage other businesses to continue
to provide services and jobs, especially
in light of Target's
decision.
The two Minneapolis grocery stores will
employ about 125, Houston said -- slightly
more than the 123 workers at the West
Broadway Target.
"Do we now become more important than
them?" Houston said. "Or, do we figure
out a way that the community keeps both
and gets a mixture of quality services
and products that it needs while providing
livable-wage
jobs?"
That's the goal that he and his
partners have in mind,
Houston said.
That mindset already seems to be working,
said Dave Ramsay, a sales manager for
Maple Lake-based Bernatello's Pizza,
one of Houston's suppliers. He has
noticed an increase in customer traffic
in the store since the new
ownership.
"Everybody's smiling," said Ramsay,
who has been selling his company's
frozen pizza at the store location since
the late 1980s. "The owners' enthusiasm
is clearly rubbing off on their workers
and customers alike. All the right
ingredients are there to make a
neighborhood store
successful."
http://www.startribune.com/stories/462/3923911.html
Posted by Shawn Lewis, Field Neighborhood
--
_______________________________________________
Sign-up for your own FREE Personalized E-mail at Mail.com
http://www.mail.com/?sr=signup
TEMPORARY REMINDER:
1. Don't feed the troll! Ignore obvious flame-bait.
2. If you don't like what's being discussed here, don't complain - change the subject
(Mpls-specific, of course.)
________________________________
Minneapolis Issues Forum - A City-focused Civic Discussion - Mn E-Democracy
Post messages to: mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]
Subscribe, Unsubscribe, Digest, and more: http://e-democracy.org/mpls
