BUNNELL — Members of the Harris family have been in the grocery business in Volusia and Flagler counties since 1945, nearly without interruption, but not quite.
“We sold this store one time in the late 1980s,” said Beth Harris, 81, standing in a row with a handful of family members in a chilly, cramped hall next to the meat department at Harris Grocery Store, a fixture along this uncluttered stretch of U.S. 1 in Flagler County since 1985.
At the time, a buyer who already operated seven convenience stores in the area made Beth and her husband, Don, 83, an offer that was too good to pass up, she said. “We were tired,” Beth recalls now.
“You can’t run a grocery store from the office,” Don added. “You have to be on the floor.”
But the Harris family could only stay away a few years.
“We had to take it back,” Beth said. “All our customers were really faithful; they all came back — and more.”
Now employing the fifth generation of the Harris family, the Bunnell store is more than a place to buy biscuits and beans, according to owners and customers alike.
“We live in a small community and the community takes care of us,” said Don and Beth’s daughter, Robin Henderson, whose husband, Rusty Henderson, is the latest in a long line of family owners. “And we give back to them.”
That community connection is evident on a wall behind the meat cases, where plaques and proclamations honor current and long-ago Little League teams and other milestones, including framed snapshots of Rachel Henderson, Robin and Rusty’s daughter, on the competitive rodeo circuit. A copy of the Pledge of Allegiance is taped to a bathroom door.
Rachel Henderson, 22, traveled to Texas for a potential rodeo career, but eventually returned to the family business, where she handles the store’s social media presence. She’s the fifth generation of family to work at the store.
“We sponsor exhibits at the county fair, all the high school clubs, baseball and football teams,” Robin said of the store’s local connections. “We participate in church fund-raisers.”
Don’s brother, Bo Harris, 81, nods in quiet agreement.
“I’ve made 10,000 chicken dinners over the past 50 years,” he said.
For the Harris brothers, the introduction to the grocery business came at an early age. Don and Bo were making deliveries for their father, W.P. Harris, before they were teenagers in the countryside north of Lakeland. There, the family raised strawberries and bell peppers and carried on the grocery business started by their grandfather, John Cooper.
“He had a store in Auburndale in the early 1940s,” said Don, adding that his father built a grocery store in 1945 near the campus of Bethune-Cookman University. The family would run the store in a handful of Daytona Beach locations, with a few breaks, until it closed in 2005, he said.
“A lot of customers from the first store in Daytona, they still come up here,” Don said. “We also have regular customers from Palatka, St. Augustine and Hastings.”
That includes Curtis Williams, 83, of Bunnell, among the regulars pushing carts along the store’s six narrow aisles on a recent weekday morning.
“They are decent people, friendly, fair,” Williams said. “Very good people. I’ve known them for 50 years, at least. I remember them down there in Daytona.”
Since 1985, the Bunnell store’s no-nonsense exterior — utilitarian gray aluminum and red trim — has witnessed the arrival of a long list of nearby competitors: A handful of Publix stores, Winn-Dixie, Target, Aldi’s, an array of Dollar stores, a Walmart in Palm Coast.
And customers have changed, too.
“People don’t cook like they used to,” Bo said. “We used to sell tons of greens, now they buy more frozen food.”
Still, the Harris philosophy hasn’t changed, family members said.
“The secret to success is quality meat and produce and the way you treat your customers,” Don said.
It’s in the customer service realm that the store shines the most, the owners acknowledge. Fresh meat is custom-cut to order and the refrigerated cases are stocked with "things you can't get anywhere else," as Bo said, such as smoked pig tails, pork neckbones, ham hocks and sliced hog jowls. Like a throwback to Andy Griffith’s mythical Mayberry, students still arrive with good report cards for a free dill pickle or piece of candy.
“Customers don’t just come here for groceries,” Beth said. “They come here for advice. They trust us.”
That trust goes both ways at a store that closes early on Tuesdays for an employee prayer service.
“If somebody doesn’t get paid ‘til Friday and they need bread or meat, we extend them credit,” Beth said. “We trust.”
Hutch King, a former Flagler County commissioner and another regular, echoes the notion that the family’s store goes beyond shopping lists.
“They go past being a grocery store,” King said. “They are part of the home community.”
If you go
WHAT: Harris Grocery Store, family-owned business in Volusia and Flagler counties since 1945
WHERE: 1006 U.S. Highway 1, Bunnell
HOURS: 7:30 a.m.-8 p.m. Monday-Saturday; 8 a.m.-5 p.m. Sunday
PHONE: 386-437-3813
ONLINE: harrisgrocerybunnell.com
Timeline: 1945
When Harris Grocery Store went into business in 1945, here's a snapshot of what else was happening in the world:
• The United States drops the first atomic bomb on Hiroshima, Japan.
• The United States celebrates V-J Day to mark Allied Forces victory in Japan.
• The 17th Academy Awards ceremony is held, broadcast on radio for the first time. The Best Picture Oscar was awarded to "Going My Way."
• President Franklin D. Roosevelt dies suddenly on April 12 at Warm Springs, Georgia. Vice President Harry S. Truman becomes the 33rd President.
• World War II ends with the acceptance of the official surrender of Japan by the Supreme Allied Commander General Douglas MacArthur and other leaders aboard the American battleship USS Missouri in Tokyo Bay.
• The Detroit Tigers win the World Series against the Chicago Cubs.
• The U.S. Senate approves the entry of the United States into the United Nations.