Customers Find Old-Fashioned Market Super
Stepping into Howie’s Ranch Market is like stepping back into a bygone era.
A huge old-fashioned safe squats by the front door. Employees cheerfully greet many customers by name. The shelves are low, making it easy to see across the store. If you’ve been in a few times, no one makes you show your ID to write a check.
“We’re unusual by today’s standards,” said Kathy Picano, who has owned the store for the last 17 of its 77 years in the same location. “We have a devoted clientele, and that’s unusual too.”
In a world of chain stores and galaxy-sized supermarkets, the independent grocery at 14 E. Sierra Madre Blvd. in Sierra Madre is a vestige of a less hurried time, when shopping for groceries could be as much a social occasion as a necessity. Patrons exchange family news in the aisles and joke with the employees.
Many seem to think of the store itself as an old friend.
“A lot of the customers that come in here have smiles on their faces. When do you ever go into a supermarket and see that?” said Bradbury resident Patti DeVault, 50, a Howie’s shopper for more than three decades.
Customers say part of Howie’s charm is that it manages to pack a lot of wares into 12,000 square feet of space, one-fourth the size of many supermarkets.
“There is everything you need to survive in this store,” said DeVault.
Tucked among the Wheatena cereal, garbanzo beans and toilet paper are packages of Starbucks coffee, two brands of organic milk and an entire section featuring gourmet sauces bottled by mom-and-pop outfits.
While small markets have virtually vanished in the lengthening shadow of chain supermarkets, Picano said Howie’s survives precisely because it doesn’t try to imitate its big brethren.
Instead, the store stakes its survival on seemingly small details, such as the ritual that takes place every day at an ancient sink in the warehouse. Workers hand wash box loads of fruit and vegetables in a bathtub-sized trough, scrubbing away every trace of dirt.
Anything not at peak ripeness or showing signs of bruising gets tossed.
“Chain supermarkets are too big and too busy to do that level of care,” said customer service manager Bob Quarnstrom, 59, who signed on as a box boy 43 years ago and has worked at Howie’s ever since.
The uneven but sparkling linoleum floors are swept every 30 to 60 minutes.
The market’s 25 employees take phone orders and deliver groceries for ailing customers.
An old-style butcher shop, offering 14 kinds of marinated chicken next to thick cuts of beef and pork, draws frequent praise from shoppers.
Picano says business is good in large part because of a loyal clientele from Sierra Madre, a hamlet with many old-timers among its 10,000 residents.
“We have people who’ve been here 50 years and feel they own the market. And they practically do,” she said, chuckling.
Gloria Hinshaw, 86, lives half a block from a chain supermarket but chooses to travel across town to Howie’s.
“I know where everything is, and if I ask for something, they go over and get it,” said the retired librarian.
Bobbi Perry, 47, a stay-at-home mom, likes the fact that everything is only a few steps away, and lines at the checkout stands are always short.
“You can get in and out quickly,” she said.
Roger Munn, 79, a retired administrative assistant, said he dislikes large supermarkets because they often move their wares around, forcing him to search for common items, and the clerks are constantly changing.
Howie’s prices are probably a bit higher, he added, but “it comes out about even” because shopping is less stressful and seniors get a discount.
DeVault’s husband, Alan, a retired software engineer, doesn’t miss the big stores.
“What keeps us coming back,” he said, “is that a rather mundane event -- grocery shopping -- is a really pleasant experience here.”
