Two decades of deals

MOSES LAKE — There’s no shortage of grocery shopping options in Moses Lake.

Several large, well-known chains have big stores in town. And then, tucked away near the Stratford Road exit from SR-17, is the much smaller Grocery Outlet Bargain Market, which opened in 1994 and this month marked two decades under the ownership of Kris and Paul Emerson.

The Emersons have spent most of their adult lives with Grocery Outlet one way or another. Paul began working for the Spokane store in 1986, and Kris in 1989. There they stayed for 15 years, Paul working there continually and Kris off and on with time out for four children. Finally in 2001, they decided it was time to take the next step.

“In that day and age, there was just a small amount of stores,” Kris said. “And so, when they would need operators for a new store that they were opening, they would basically just send an email out asking the existing operators if they had any employees in their midst that (maybe) would want to purchase a store.”

Paul had made it about as far as he could at the store they worked at then and they decided to move on to the next step, Kris said.

“And we'd both been doing it now for so long, we thought ‘Well, next step is to purchase one.’ So we answered the call and purchased one. We packed up four children and we moved to Madera, California.”

Madera, a town of about 66,000 people in central California north of Fresno, didn’t remain home to the Emersons for long. Nine months later, the owners of the store in Moses Lake decided they were ready to retire, and they wanted to recommend to the company that the Emersons take over.

“Paul and I talked about it for a minute,” Kris said. “And we were like, ‘Well, that's about the closest to Spokane we're gonna get.’”

They told the owners they were interested, and not more than two hours later the Emersons had a call saying they had been selected. They could sell their store in Madera to another owner and take on the Moses Lake store.

And here they’ve been ever since.

Grocery Outlet stores are locally owned, Kris explained.

“We all have skin in the game, so to speak. It's just a really unique partnership between the independent operator and Grocery Outlet,” she said. “They helped us find an operator. So we sold it to them, and then (the Moses Lake owners) sold to us. That was 20 years ago on March 6, and the rest is history.”

Grocery Outlet’s locally-owned structure gives it more flexibility than larger corporate stores when it comes to interacting with the customers and the community, Kris said. They can make decisions on the fly that a larger company would have to put through several layers of bureaucracy.

“If we've got a school that needs water, Paul and I can answer that question, ‘Yeah, we can give you 10 cases of water,’” Kris said.

She said many of the corporate-owned stores have to have similar requests well in advance and she appreciates being able to support the community without navigating a maze of policies.

“We have a lot more flexibility in that kind of thing, and to be able to be involved in our community and to give back,” she said.

Grocery Outlet has been a supporter of the Salvation Army for 20 years and the Boys and Girls Club for about 10, Paul said. And when Habitat for Humanity builds a new home, Grocery Outlet is there to help.

“We used to fill the pantries when the new homeowners came in,” he said. “We’d go fill the pantry for them and have some stuff in the house ready for them when they took ownership.”

The actual 20-year anniversary is over, but the store will be celebrating the milestone on April 8, with a "Roaring ’20s" themed party. The celebration will run from 12 to 7 p.m. and include free balloons for kids, a free photo booth and an anniversary sale.

Even as they celebrate 20 years, the Emersons aren’t looking to retire any time soon. Paul said he’s considered hanging it up in eight, maybe 10 years, but no decisions are on the horizon.

“When my back says ‘Well, I’m done,’ I guess I‘m done,” he said.

Joel Martin may be reached at jmartin@columbiabasinherald.com.