Focus On | Focus On: Tony's Market & Italian Deli

My full name, Salvatore Locarno.

The second I don't go by that, though, I go by Sam.

My role as the owner, when I came back, my parents were k you know, ready to retire from doing everything.

So I came back and basically took over.

Originally, when we moved here in 1994, me and my dad just started selling produce out of the back of a van on this corner right here.

About a year later, we moved across the street into a small building.

Then we moved into a little bit larger building, had a.

Little deli.

There, and kind of.

We've just been all over the place.

So we've been around h in this town.

We've had four in cluding a restaurant which is no longer there anymore.

They tore the building down.

Oh, yeah, we've been we've been We're more of a produce market, which is how we started.

That's kind of what my dad's always been in his whole life.

So we've done produce since we opened in 94.

The original location, which was here in a in a truck.

And then we added flowers and then we added a deli.

We we try to be pretty diverse in what we do.

It's hard to have just produce because produce is a really short season.

We try to carry a lot of local.

Baked goods.

A lot of the s which is about as local as you When we do have small vendors in Warrensburg or in the surrounding areas, we t Roma bread, which is the Kansas City staple.

We carry Manila Sausage, which has been in Kans We try to stay really local and what we carry as far as product.

Lewisburg, apple cider, which is everybody knows Lewisburg, Kansas has been around forever.

We're great little.

Store.

You know.

We keep our prices low, which Wh en they come into a small store.

Like this.

They expect high prices because.

We're smaller, we can't compete.

With places like.

Wal-Mart.

But we actually have sometimes better p That Hy-Vee or any of the other.

Local stores.

We you k Milk.

We sell milk.

And eggs cheaper than anybody.

a lot of people don't know that.

We don't advertise a lot.

We don't we don't h So that's kind of hard for us.

But word of mouth is.

Really big for us.

We try to carry a great selection.

Of things, you know.

Like the local We try to get that all through the season, regardless of the cost for u Sometimes we don't make as much money on it as we need to.

But we still like to keep it because customers want it.

I love meeting new people and seeing new faces all the time.

I like being a part of the community.

We try to help out.

When we You know, I definitely like being a part of the co We have a lot of great customers.

A lot of our customers.

They like coming i Over the years.

I've gotten When they call in for an order, I know what they want al They don't really have to tell me what they want.

They're there.

We get a lot of repeat customers as far as food.

Their orders always stay the same.

They have a certain thing that they like.

So it's really easy.

You call up.

I see their name on the phone.

I already know what th So when I first opened this location up, We didn't have any walls, it was just a canopy.

And that building.

Which this back here was the.

Original building.

This was kind of all added on and it just ha No fences, no nothing.

I had a guy who I ended up being pretty good friends with.

Afterwards he came in.

His name was Ray.

He came in.

I wasn't here, Some stuff, left.

Some money We you know, we kind of started to become friend but it was probably one of my first customers here.

We've had we have a lot of repeat.

Customers in this town, Pe ople.

You get a lot of college people now.

Now that I mean, our food is becoming really popular with the college kids, which are like, you know, we've always tried to.

Spread through.

The college as much as we can.

So I. Alwa Part of Warrensburg.

I love being in Warren when I first came back, my goa This building down and put up a new building.

My dad's had some health.

Issues.

So that's kind of.

Set us back a little bit But the goal for this place is just to provide great customer servi good products for everybody around here, and try to not we don't.

Want to expand.

Because we'r Going to be tidy We're just we want to.

Stay as loca Being small like this does give us access to small nic But we get a lot of people that have lived.

In this town for their whole life.

I mean, we've been around for almost 30 years and.

We always get people that say, We've lived your whole life.

Well, we drive by every day.

We've never.

Stopped in.

If you haven't stopped in, stop stopping.

I mean, we are we're a good store, you know that Wal-Mart does, but we try to we try to have a good selection.

Come check out our food.

We've got gr I don't eat bad food.

Just come check us out.

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