Once upon a time…
There were two kids that fell in love, Joe & Karen. They had a family and enjoyed their simple together. One day, they decided they were ready to take a little bigger bite out of life’s apple. Why not open up a small market in their favorite lakeshore town? Somewhere that locals, tourists, and boaters alike could get the everyday staples they needed. It would be an absolute dream to own their own business, have their kids work with them, and be in a town where they had made so many good memories and friends.. “Let’s do it!” And so, with a lot of town meetings, blind faith, and very good people helping along the way: “Lucy’s Market” was created out of the old print shop at 133 Columbus Ave….
Well, some ideas can be great, and still not succeed. That was the unfortunate case for Lucy’s Market. No one was coming in. Slowly, items on the shelf had to get thrown out from not selling with dates passing expiration. Maybe the town didn’t need a local market or maybe word just wasn’t getting out. Either way, the red line kept growing and Joe and Karen needed to think of something before needing to close the doors entirely.
And so was born, “Lucy’s Deli”. You see, Karen noticed that although no one was coming in for their market goods like a bag of flour or packaged hotdogs, there was a small shuffle of customers that were consistently stopping at the very small deli counter for some of the homemade salads and sandwiches that she had made using recipes from her mother (Lucy’s Grandma). With this observation Joe and Karen turned their losses into successes by expanding the deli selection to encourage more and more customers to come in for lunch. It worked.
Lucy’s Deli survived. It grew to have a large, supportive group of regulars and a whole town that would recommend them by name. Eventually Lucy’s was steady enough to provide a few jobs of steady income to some members of the community via employment at Lucy’s. That part was always a big deal to Joe and Karen.
And now we come to our current life cycle, just “Lucy’s”… TO BE CONTINUED (I ran out of time)