The Foodland name stuck for all the franchises until their agreements expired, which the owners decided not to renew. “As a child growing up, you don’t realize the sacrifices and progress they made, you don’t realize what my father (Frederick Joseph) went through to keep the store running and what they did was always for a reason,” Jeff Joseph said. The founders were able to run franchises of their own, however, and eventually passed ownership to their sons, who still run the stores today. People couldn’t even go down the aisles.”īig Star expanded to 10 stores total, but “economic pressure and strains” led to the founders’ decision to sell the company in 1984 to Foodland, Jeff Joseph said. “For the first few weeks there was no space in the parking lot. “It was a hit from day one,” Jeff Joseph said of the first Big Star opening. The four decided to sell the land they just purchased to a family in Wheeling, and had first right to lease the land, allowing them to save enough in funding to build the supermarket. “Knowing my family, they were disappointed but that didn’t stop them. “The bank president said it will never work, he said, ‘Nobody does $30,000 (in sales) a week but Kroger,” he said. They asked for a loan from the Charleston National Bank, but the bank rejected the idea, Jeff Joseph said. The group had enough funds to purchase the land, but not enough to build the Big Star and stock it with products. Getting the Charleston supermarket built and running was easier said than done, however. The four founded the supermarket Big Star in Whitesville in 1950, and immediately set their sights on opening a second location on Spring Street in Charleston. Three of his sons, Frederick, Joe and Adle, worked at the general store and eventually had the itch to open up their own business with William Hamady, who had married Idell Joseph, Ameen’s daughter, a few years earlier. With coal mines booming, he had plenty of buyers and turned around enough of a profit to even buy a house in Lebanon for his parents. He made his living by selling cookware and houseware in a duffel bag and two suitcases full of merchandise, Jeff Joseph said, with the majority of customers being coal miners and their families.Īround 1912, Ameen Joseph saved enough money to open up A. “He comes to a land he knows nothing about, has virtually no money and couldn’t speak the language,” Jeff Joseph said.
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