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Many supermarkets draw in customers with free coupons, and name brands with large quantities of food. At McGonigle’s market, it’s different. It’s not a big supermarket. Mr. Tom Tonnelli, the produce manager, believe that his customers come for quality, not quantity.

The market has small quantities of produce, such as one box of red peppers and 2 boxes of onions, brought in every day by a company called Liberty Farms. If customers would like to have a certain product, they can request it and have that item by the following week.

Though McGonigle’s is commonly known as a meat market with a selection of fish that is also shipped in daily, there is a variety of produce. The selections in the store are smaller than most, with only one isle dedicated to fruits and vegetables, rather than an entire section like most grocery stores. The produce section is about as big as the deli section in chain grocery stores. The entire store itself is only about the size of a deli section in a Wal Mart, with only four small checkout lines.

The family owned store is located in between Ward Parkway and 79th street, a commonly used intersection and the store will draw in customers on the weekends when they pull out the ‘smokers’, a large black cylinder grills, to the front parking lot and smoke pork or beef to make barbeque sandwiches.

The store has been family-owned for 60 years, and seems to be doing well according to Mike Authic, a worker of a year and a half, with over 100 customers daily.

‘I can’t even tell you how many [customers] we get a day,’ Authic said.

With so many customers, the small store is always restocking and ensuring the isles are clean.

The fruits and vegetables are dropped off around 9 in the morning and are examined by Tom Tonnelli before he then stocks them. If there is a rotten or crate or box, he sends them back for a full refund.

‘I absolutely do send them [bad produce] back,’ Tonnelli said, ‘I want only what is best for the customers. The worst thing I can do is have bad product on the shelves.’

Tonnelli can recall working at other grocery stores where they would bring in forklifts full of produce such as watermelons, and have a ‘produce greenhouse’ the size of a warehouse.

‘There is a tremendous difference between the two crates of tomatoes and the forklifts full of tomatoes,’ Tonnelli said.

With a only a few boxes of each type of product comming in, it leaves room to have more variety.

‘They have all kinds of mushrooms that you can’t buy anywhere at any of the stores,’ Elizabeth Adams said, a frequent shopper at McGonigle’s. ‘Its a very small produce section, but that’s where I go to buy spinach.’

According the Tonnelli, McGonigle’s has loyal customers who have been going to the market since it opened in 1951. Such as Adams, who has been going there since she was young.

‘We have a lot of… I don’t want to say older, because it’s not just older folks, but a lot of people who don’t want to go to a big market, ‘ Tonnelli said. ‘I’ve been told on more than one occasion that they don’t mind not having as many selections and would take the quality in place of having as many selections.’