A last of its kind, family-owned grocery store is for sale in South Jersey

John’s Friendly Market — among the last of its kind — is for sale, and customers have questions.

Will a new owner of the store and deli, which some describe as “the heart of Haddon Heights,” continue to make its signature potato salad in house? What about the ambrosia? Will the hoagies still be “John’s hoagies”?

And more important, will John’s Friendly Market continue to be a place where neighbors meet, kids on bikes converge after school, and U.S. Navy vet Robert Jones can eat lunch in the kitchen as he’s been doing pretty much every day for 40 years?

“John’s is irreplaceable,” said retired librarian Bob Hunter, who moved to the tree-lined Camden County borough of about 7,500 in the late 1970s.

On social media and in conversation, local residents wonder whether a buyer will be willing to preserve the market’s idiosyncratic personality in an era of fierce competition and corporate store formats.

“We don’t want John’s to become just a convenience store, because we’re more than that,” said Marina Packwood, who grew up as a customer, was hired part-time 10 years ago, and now manages the deli.

John’s employs about two dozen full or part-time workers.

“A lot of people rely on us,” Packwood said. “Seniors who live in Stanfill Towers can walk here. Some people need help carrying bags to their cars, and we do that.”

Calling John’s “the place you can find the missing ingredient for making dinner,” steady customer and West Philly native Reeves W. Honey said she remembers when corner grocery stores were common in cities, as well as small towns.

“I would love to see someone buy John’s and maintain it as it is,” she said.

Josie Doto and Grethe Pole, daughters of the store’s namesake, the late John C. Johnson, have asked their friend and customer Haddon Heights Realtor Daniel R. White Jr. to handle inquiries from potential buyers.

“We’re not going to close,” said Doto. “What we’re going to do is look for another family or person who will carry on our traditions.

“Our dad dedicated his life to this,” she said. “He built the business and the name and the brand and all the goodwill. How do you put a price tag on a whole career?”

Doto spoke Tuesday while making potato salad in the kitchen, where Jones, whom everyone calls “chief,” was having a cup of tea. He also was waiting for what he described as an “anything they give me” sandwich.

“This is a different store from all the others,” the 94-year-old Barrington resident said.

“When I first came here, I used to take John to different places because he never drove a car,” said Jones. “If a customer died, I would take him to the viewing.

“Until one night, he went, and afterward he said to me, ‘I can’t take it anymore.’ Customers were more than his customers. They were his friends.”

John C. Johnson began working at what was then Lindsey’s Market in the mid-1950s. An industrious and personable World War II veteran, Johnson saved enough to buy the store in the late 1970s and worked there until not long before his death, at 91, in 2011.

During his tenure, the market’s homespun vibe inspired children’s author DyAnne DiSalvo-Ryan to write and illustrate Grandpa’s Corner Store, which was published in 2000. And after Johnson died, local children brought written tributes and trinkets of appreciation to the store, where they were displayed on his “office” chair in the center aisle.

“When Daddy died, my sister and I were both tired of our [outside] careers, and we were ready to take over the store,” said Doto. “It was a natural progression.

“Lately as we each grew more tired, and health issues and family issues came up, we said, ‘We can’t wait for our kids, who have all branched off into different [directions], to get tired of their careers.’

”It was a hard decision to make. But It’s time to find another family to start a new cycle.”

Jim Mercurio, who recently expanded his Roads and Rails hobby shop next door to John’s, called the grocery store “the hub of the wheel” in the borough.

“I hope a new owner keeps that small-town way of doing business,” he said. “It seems like a family in there. Everybody knows each other. And you can get meats there you can’t get anywhere else.”

Mayor Zach Houck, whose administration seeks to bolster investment in properties along Station Avenue and in other commercial districts in the borough, is a regular at John’s.

“Like everyone else, I’m wondering where I’ll go for my cold cuts and steaks without John’s,” he said.

“We are prepared as a town to pull out all the stops so that the store can continue to exist,” said Houck. “That’s what we all want.”

The one-story building that houses the market dates from around 1918 and has long anchored the western end of the borough’s downtown.

Early on it housed a branch of the Great Atlantic and Pacific Food Market, the predecessor of the A&P chain.

Lindsey’s and John’s outlasted not only the Acme, Penn Fruit, and A&P supermarkets that opened in Haddon Heights in the 1950s and ‘60s but the Penn Fruit and A&P companies themselves.

“Now there isn’t a food store here, except for John’s,” said Hunter, the retired librarian. “Personal service and friendliness go a long way to keeping customers happy.”

“At John’s they let you buy just a stick of butter. If you only want half a dozen eggs, they’ll break the carton for you. You can’t replicate that someplace else.”