Turlock’s Village Fresh one of few remaining Pallios grocery stores

BY JOE CORTEZ Turlock Journal

The story of Village Fresh Market is more than that of a neighborhood grocery store.

It’s the story of Greek immigrants and the American Dream.

Stelios Pallios immigrated to the United States from Greece — the Isle of Crete, to be precise — in 1906. After a brief stop in Pennsylvania, where he worked as a miner, Pallios made his way to Utah and there married Athena Kissamitakis.

The couple’s three sons made their way to California and, in 1951, the two oldest sons — Gus and John — entered the grocery business when they opened Richland Market on the corner of Evans Road and Richland Avenue in Ceres.

Eventually, younger brother George would join the partnership and they would go on to have seven stores in Stan- islaus County.

Richland Market officially came to Turlock on September 17, 1965, nearly 60 years ago. When a site on Canal Drive and Johnson Avenue became available, the family responded quickly and negotiated a lease for the 17,200-square-foot space.

Of course, the shopping center looked a lot different back then.

The grocery store was situated closer to Johnson Road than it is today. Bilson’s Sporting Goods was also located in the shopping center, on the east side of the market. There was also a Rexall Drug Store, located where you’ll find the Canal Veterinary Hospital today, and the Penguin Ice Cream shop, now a Starbucks.

The Pallios brothers purchased the shopping complex from the Taylor family in 1973 and began an expansion project in 1979. A year later, the family moved into the new Richland Market at 2090 E.

Canal Dr., where it sits to this day (since 2005, however, the store has been called Village Fresh Market).

The market closed early one evening in 1980 and began moving inventory from the old market into the new 31,000-square-foot facility (the size of the market has since been reduced with the addition of a Dollar Tree store and an Edward Jones financial services branch).

Members of the east Turlock neighborhood pitched in to help the family make the move to the new store, filling up grocery carts and pushing the inventory next door to its new home.

The move was completed that evening.

In the early 2000s, the family began exiting the grocery industry. Two stores were sold off and the families of Gus and George kept three markets, along with the Richland name, while John’s family kept two stores — in Turlock and Oakdale — under the Village Fresh Market banner.

Eventually, the Oakdale store was sold to Raley's and the Canal Street location remains under the ownership of John's son, Jim Pallios.

Today, there are not many employees still with the family who worked at the store when it was known as Richland Market.

Store manager Ron Senk, assistant manager Marco Van Oostende and longtime family associates Don Gonsalves, a local realtor, and Jim Stevens, the original meat manager at Richland, are the last of the Mohicans.

But while the name may have changed, Village Fresh Market remains a familyowned business where you can shop for your groceries, get greeted by name, and asked about your family.

Which is exactly what Gus, John and George had in mind all along.