Deborah Johnson Wood
Ken Courts has 25 years of running Ionia's successful McCord's Farm Market in the bag, and now he and his son Aaron Courts are ready to open a similar fresh fruit and vegetable market in the former Alger Heights Foods location, 2420 Eastern Ave. SE, Grand Rapids.
Ken Courts, 48, sold his part of McCord's, and moved to Florida for five years where he owned a construction company. When the economy tanked, he closed the construction company and came back to Michigan looking for the right place to open Ken's Fruit Market.
"When I was in Florida, I was looking online and talking to realtors in Grand Rapids, Lansing and Detroit because I wanted the market to be in one of those cities," says Courts. "Grand Rapids and Detroit have real good wholesale markets, and I knew Grand Rapids because I was born here and lived here for 10 years of my life.
"The neighborhood is real diverse ethnically, and that's important to this kind of business," he says.
Besides fresh produce, Ken's Fruit Market will offer milk, bread, cheese, canned goods, bulk candies, and trail mix bought in bulk and packaged at the store. There will also be a selection of wild birdseed.
Courts plans to add a butcher shop in the near future. In the meantime, he'll sell packaged meats and poultry.
Courts and his staff have begun stocking the market with non-perishables while waiting for the final okay from city inspectors to open the doors on Thursday, August 12. He's optimistic that everything will be on schedule.
"We will get produce late Wednesday night, and will come in about 3 a.m. on Thursday morning and start putting it all out," he says.
Store hours will be 7 a.m. to 9 p.m.
Source: Ken Courts, Ken's Fruit Market
Deborah Johnson Wood is development news editor for Rapid Growth Media. She can be contacted at [email protected]. Development News tips can be sent to [email protected].
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