Greg Cassis has been in the grocery store business since he was 14 and started as a bagger. “I worked my way up to temporary manager through college,” he said. After graduation, he decided to put his grocery experience to use. He bought a 2,100-square-foot corner store and turned the existing business into his own Greg’s Market located in Moundsville, West Virginia.

“Luckily, my father owned that building, so he was able to work with me to get the store [up and running]. During my time working for other grocers, I honed my instincts about what people wanted and how to serve them,” Cassis said.

Expansion Evolution

Cassis said that in the early years of running the store, “We tried everything we could to evolve and be what the community needed us to be.” For example, when he had to raise prices because of the increasing costs of goods, he would up the cost of cigarettes rather than candy.

When he replaced his original store with a new 8,000-square-foot building (four times the size of his first store) in 2004, he segmented the store into a 2,000-square-foot convenience store to the left of the entrance and a full grocery store with a meat deli to the right.

He added a second location in 1989—a 7,500-square-foot store in Cameron, West Virgina, which he has since rented to Dollar General—and opened another Greg’s Market location, also in Moundsville, in April 1998. “The two [current Greg’s Market] stores are basically identical in terms of products and services,” he said.

One of the big draws of Greg’s Market is its fresh deli and foodservice offerings. “When I originally opened the first store, I used my second cousin Marlene’s recipes for ham salad, cucumber salad, etc., as well as developed our own pizza program where we sell hot and take-home pies,” he said, noting that he still uses Marlene’s recipes today. “We focused on making things in house that our customers couldn’t get anywhere else.”

His biggest seller is chicken wings, which customers can take home to bake fresh in their own ovens. “The secret is in the seasoning, which is a handmade recipe that I created. We sell around 800 pounds of wings per week, and 2,000 pounds of wings (more than 14,000 individual wings) the week of the Super Bowl,” Cassis said.

He also emphasized that details and “the little things” matter to customers, such as putting paper between slices of cheese when slicing to order. “We do a huge deli business because we pay attention to the things that customers want,” Cassis said.

Another popular destination in the store is the beer cave, which Cassis designed himself as a walk-in, rear-filled cooler. “I ended up expanding it to include another six doors and we keep them as cold as possible—I want to sell the coldest beer anywhere,” he said. He stocks national brands and some local brews, and carries the widest selection possible, including one door dedicated to Mexican beer. One of his most popular alcoholic drinks isn’t beer, it’s the non-carbonated alcoholic Twisted Tea. “I sell five cases of the 25-ounce cans each day out of two cooler doors,” Cassis said.

Service With a Smile

The most important thing in running his business is ensuring his staff treats customers well, Cassis said. “We have a banner from the store’s 30th anniversary that says, ‘Service with a smile never goes out of style.’ And it’s true, because our customers are comfortable shopping with us because we try to keep a good, happy attitude,” he said. While he doesn’t run the big customer appreciation events today that he held back when vendors helped to defray the costs, he does try to stay connected to the community through youth sports team sponsorships.

Cassis works hard to make his employees happy and keep them satisfied in their jobs. He cooks lunch for them most days to eat as a group and strives to create a family atmosphere among the employees, which he hopes makes working at Greg’s seem less like a job and more like being part of a family, especially for the younger generation of workers. “I’m very casual and try to make everyone’s life a little bit more pleasant,” he said.

For Cassis, the sign he’s succeeded in making Greg’s Market a welcoming place to shop is when a customer returns. “You know we did it right when they come back, and when you see them coming back for generations, that’s when you know you’ve created something special,” he said.