As the owner of an 80-year-old family grocery business, John Herr has seen things come and go. Of the vast array of ways he could shape his family grocery store, he's tried to pick and choose, embracing some innovations and rejecting others.
Of one thing, he's certain.
John Herr's Village Market in Millersville could get bigger and perhaps even open other locations. But "you'd have to be nuts to do that," he says.
You really have to walk fast and pay attention to keep up with Herr. Herr, who has been running his own store with 135 employees for 54 years, isn't slowing down a bit. In fact, he's thinking about adding more features to the store that has been located at 25 Manor Ave. since 1974.
"We've got a salad bar and an inhouse bakery and a lot of other things that the big chains have," Herr said. "People don't cook anymore, so we have to do the made-to-order stuff, too."
Conspicuous by its absence, however, is the modern staple of supermarkets. When you check out groceries at John Herr's Village Market, Millersville, a clerk, dressed nattily in a candy-stripped smock, will physically punch the cost into a cash register. UPC symbols are useless here.
Price scanners are nowhere to be seen in Herr's market. In some sense, the lack of scanners give the entire supermarket a "time warp" atmosphere.
However, Herr, and his vice president of 47 years, Jim Eshleman, admit that those days of minimal technology in the store are probably gone.
Maybe.
"We've talked to our customers, and they say they really don't want the scanners," Herr said. "But, it's come to the point where we may have to get them in order to (survive)."
According to both Herr and Eshleman, the scanners are important to the merchandise warehouses and the big chains because they can pinpoint exactly what the buying patterns are of the customers. If a customer has a special "bonus buy" or "gold card" distributed by the chains, it can scan that through at the checkout, which will record the information and know precisely which customer is buying what item.
The scanners, according to the National Cash Register Co., cost between $400 and $2,000 apiece. Only one scanner is placed in each checkout register. John Herr has 10 checkout registers.
"If we want to know what we should carry, we just ask people," Eshleman said, although he noted that as more people move into the area, the supermarket might want to keep closer tabs on what it should be stocking.
The Darrenkamp family has a history similar to Herr's in the grocery market business. The grandfather of the family sold produce and fish from a horse and buggy. That business grew to a store on Lancaster's Union Street in 1932 and has since expanded to three locations: Willow Street, Mount Joy and a new 50,000-square-foot market at Willow Valley.
Darrenkamp's has embraced technology.
"In the long run it's better for the business," said Dave Darrenkamp, coowner with his brothers of Darrenkamp's Mount Joy Market Inc. "At first they may not like it, but they always come around when they see how things are used."
The Willow Valley Darrenkamp's features in-house ATMs, scanners at the checkout, credit card machines for purchases, a full-service restaurant that seats 64, 47,000 different brands and more than a million items overall.
"There are more of us; we have four families," Darrenkamp said. "We have no choice but to grow. Jack (Herr) has taken on the attitude if ain't broke, don't fix it, and he's got a great business. He really does a great job with his store."
But, says Darrenkamp, he was once in the same boat as Herr, struggling to keep up with the surging pace of the marketplace.
"If you would have told me two years ago that we would have 480 employees, in three different stores with all this new technology in the stores, I would have looked at you like you were nuts," Darrenkamp said.
After 80 years and three generations, John Herr's Village Market has survived fairly well. Too much technology, Herr said, might take away from the store's personal touch.
Herr and Eshleman have lowered the ceilings and eliminated as much of the light from fluorescent bulbs as possible. In the big stores, the ceilings are high and aisles wide in order to pack more goods and people in, but that makes the shopping experience impersonal, Herr says.
"We did this intentionally to make the store more comfortable with a more homey atmosphere," Herr said. "We've put in hanging lamps and opened up a bit of space, and to in and our customers, it just feels much more personable."
Service and personality are the calling cards of the market. Baggers are stationed at each of the store's checkout lines. There are also packers just outside the doors to help shoppers load their groceries into their cars. While groceries can be purchased with a MAC card, the store isn't open 24 hours.
"We're not that modem," Herr quips. "We need to sleep sometimes."
The history
The store opened its doors in 1919 when Herr's grandfather, David, bought a broom and harness shop where the Framery, a picture framing store on the corner of Manor and George streets, now stands. Back then, Herr's sold everything from boots to dish cloths.
In 1945, the business was passed on to Herr's father, John Sr., and Herr began working there when he was 16, slicing meats and delivering groceries.
The store was completely remodeled and expanded by 1964, when Herr took over. As to the future, Herr isn't sure. He said he doesn't have family members working at his store.
"We'll worry about that when it comes," he said.
Herr has had a lot of time to reflect on the changes of his business.
"I think the biggest thing that has happened is the frozen-food business," Herr said. "There are so many new items specifically made just for the microwave oven. Everything has to be able to be prepared so quickly because nobody cooks anymore."
Eshleman remembers when people who lived on farms in the outlying areas of the town set aside one day a week to come to town. It was the day when they went to the bank, the grocery store, the barber and the doctor.
Later, the store would stay open until after the last bus from Lancaster arrived in Millersville.
"People got their groceries and walked home with them," Eshleman recalls. "Today, everybody shops with their car, and a lot of people shop almost daily."
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