CHICORA — The sole focus of most business owners is bumping up their bottom line, but Sharon and Dean Snow, owners of the Rummy Mart gas station and convenience store, are concerned about their customers eating healthy since the borough's only grocery store closed two years ago.

“The elderly can't get to Butler,” said Sharon Snow, referring to the closest town where Chicora residents can access a full-service grocery store.

Because so many residents of the borough and surrounding area are subsisting on food from Dollar General since Friedman's Freshmarket closed, Sharon Snow decided to start offering a small selection of fresh produce such as lettuce, tomatoes, peppers and potatoes.

“We love this town, and we love the people in it,” she said.

More fresh food coming

The couple is interviewing contractors to increase their electrical capabilities, so they can offer even more fresh food.

“We try to carry things (Dollar General) doesn't have,” she said. “People seem grateful.”

On Friday, Rosemary Rumbaugh, who sold Rummy Mart to the Snows 13 years ago, came into the store and headed straight for the fresh produce.

Rumbaugh seized a head of lettuce and placed it on the counter with her other items.

“We were not eating healthily because we have to drive to Butler to get what we want,” she said. “I appreciate them putting in some produce.”

She and her husband bought the building years ago when it was owned by her brother. At that time, it was Fugini Ford.

The couple turned it into a gas station and convenience store, and it has been thriving ever since.

Under the Snows' ownership, the store also contains The Chicora Kitchen, where customers can get fresh subs, pizza, salads and other fare that is prepared to order.

Little hope for grocery store opening

Rumbaugh said she has little hope that the former Friedman's store, which is in a small plaza in the north end of the borough, will reopen as a grocery store.

She said borough residents talk about the poor condition of the aging building, which they say would need extensive renovations if it were reopened.

Snow said she has heard that the ceiling leaks and the freezers and other equipment are original.

“It's sad for the community,” Snow said. “People are angry.”

Also patronizing Rummy Mart on Friday was Frank Waltman, owner of Waltman's Furniture Co. in Chicora.

Waltman said his father, Verne, bought the former Friedman's building in the early 1960s and opened a Hummingbird Grocery Store there.

The Friedman family began leasing the property and eventually bought it in the 1970s, Waltman said.

Waltman agreed the building probably needs extensive work if it is to be opened again.

Like Snow and Rumbaugh, he also worries about elderly residents of Chicora, Petrolia and East Brady who have nowhere to get fresh food.

He said the absence of a full-service grocery store in the area is a problem for everyone.

“These people are driving a long way to get groceries,” Waltman said.

Don Weiland, 93, of Chicora, lamented the lack of fresh food available in the borough and the inconvenience of accessing groceries.

“It's terrible,” Weiland said. “You've got to run all over the county to find a grocery store.”

He said his son, John, takes him grocery shopping in Butler about once a week.

“It's a pain in the (expletive),” Weiland said.

Not hurting home sales

While many in Chicora worry that the lack of a grocery store is affecting their property values, Chuck Swidzinski, a senior sales executive at Berkshire Hathaway in Butler, said his firm has not seen a slowdown in home sales since Friedman's closed.

“If they're priced right, they're selling,” Swidzinski said.

He said a home in Bruin and another in Petrolia sold in one week.

Swidzinski said 18 homes priced from $20,000 to $500,000 in the Karns City Area School District are on the market, which is a fairly low number of homes.

Buyers in the area, he said, are aware that no grocery store is available in the immediate area.

“I'm not seeing the lack of a grocery store as a problem,” Swidzinski said.

Friedman's history

The Chicora property containing the former Friedman's and a bank is owned by Frederick and Carole Bitter. The latter is the daughter of the grocery store's late founder, Harold Friedman.

Carole Bitter was sued as owner of Harold Friedman Inc. by Merchants Distributors Inc. of Hickory, N.C., when she stopped making payments for food supplied by the company as well as a loan given to Bitter by MDI.

The case dragged on through the courts for several months, but a federal judge in Pittsburgh ruled in favor of MDI in October 2018.

The Eagle has repeatedly tried to reach Bitter to inquire what will happen with the Chicora store, which was not involved in the lawsuit.

A letter sent by the Eagle last week has gone unanswered by Bitter.

The former Friedman's grocery store leased in the Greater Butler Mart as well as one in Saxonburg remain empty as well, although a flurry of renovation activity in recent months suggests another grocer will move into the latter at some point.

Part of the former Friedman's on West Brady Street, which is owned by Bitter's sister, Nancy Crerar, is being used as office space.