Old time feel while hometown shopping

Every small town needs a family feeling grocer, a place where the old time feel is still recognizable and when it comes to lending a helping hand to different organizations within the community, they step up.

Sidney has had a few of these, some may even remember the Jack-n-Jill, but it seems the only one left is Sonny’s Super Foods.

Even though the owners of this hometown grocery live in Bridgeport, it is managed by Ron Payne, a hometown kind of guy.

An employee at Sonny’s for 23 years, Payne said he went to work there just a couple years after its opening, having worked at Jack-n-Jill.

Payne’s journey to manager of Sonny’s Super Foods is quite simple since he grew up in Chappell and relocated to Sidney to attend college.

“There was a small business college here in town, so I went to work part-time at Jack-n-Jill as a carry out,” Payne said, “when I wasn’t going to college. That is how I became interested in the grocery store.

“I went to the business college to be a bookkeeper, but I decided I couldn’t sit behind a desk every day.”

Payne said he worked his way up within Jack-n-Jill before he came to Sonny’s as the dairy manager.

“I also still work the dairy all the time,” Payne said of his hire on position.

On April 14, 2005 he was asked to become manager of Sonny’s Super Food, a position he said he will carry on until he decides to retire.

Over the years Payne has seen many changes within the store and has had the privilege of giving a high school student a first job or the displeasure of letting a person go - the latter he is thankful rarely happens.

“Most of our help has been here for several years. Mike in produce has been here longer than I have. Dewayne in the meat department, he’s part-time, he was here before I was. Most of our other people have been here for several years.

“Our biggest turnover is in carry out, we hire them when they turn 16 and then they go to college so we hire other kids,” Payne said of the younger employees.

As with other places of work Sonny’s has its own college students who come back over the summer break or Christmas break to make a few dollars while back home.

“This year we had two come back; they worked the summer and went back to school. We do have a couple of kids who go to WNCC and work in the evenings.”

An enjoyable aspect of his job over the years has been seeing the changes made, from the addition of a deli and liquor store to the way the ordering is done and the fact the owners do something every year to the “up keep” of the store.

“There are always improvements every year,” Payne said. “We’ve gotten a new freezer in the meat department we put in this last year. We have different lighting than we had in the past.”

Though to say Payne has just seen physical changes within the store would only be telling part of the story of the ever changing tides – he has seen a change in customers and what they are more apt to purchase.

“Fast food. Everyone seems to be in a hurry,” he said. “Frozen fast foods. Anything fast, any more people buy them, everyone seems to be in a hurry. That is the biggest change I have seen.

“I don’t know that the families so much, but we have a lot of younger people, like from Cabela’s and different places that are single so they just grab something quick. That is why we added the deli, to accommodate the customer base.”

However it isn’t the changes that Payne has seen that makes him love his job, and always has, but because, “you meet several different customers, it’s different every day. I may do the same thing every day but it is still different every day.”

It seems Payne couldn’t or wouldn’t choose any other place to be and it shows through the great deal of pride he takes in the grocery store he runs; a pride that shows when boasting of having the best meat department in town and services that are quickly becoming extinct.

“We have the best tasting meat. We only have the choice meat, other places have the select, we have only choice. We cut any size order, if the customer wants the steak cut two inches thick, or however they want it we will do it.

“We also carry out groceries, which are a dying art, I guess I should say. We also deliver groceries. This is a service we started three or four years ago, where we deliver twice a week, Tuesdays and Fridays, to shut-ins or people who can’t get around.”

The grocery store really is a community kind of place, Payne said there are people he has seen coming in from the time he started working there and even mourns when a customer passes.

“It’s kinda sad when you read in the paper about a customer that has been loyal to you for 20 years plus is no longer here.”

But it is this sense of hometown and community that helped Sonny’s Super Foods and Ron Payne continue to operate, within this small town the sense of family and community are customer service number one.