Sometimes the best way to understand a particular retailer is to ask the people who work there. Employees at Marczyk Fine Foods in downtown Denver had the following to say about where they work: “This is a cool, hip, local, open-minded, supportive place that values work life balance and offers amazing benefits.”
The Shelby Report recently spoke with one of the store’s founders, Barbara Macfarlane, to learn more about its approach to selling groceries, hiring mindset, views on technology and what the future looks like.
How long has Marczyk Fine Foods been around?
We opened our first store in April 2002, and myself along with my partner, Pete Marczyk, are the owners. Pete’s brother, Paul, joined us in 2004 and Rob Jones, our CFO, has been with us almost from the beginning. Our director of operations is Mark Johnson and our chef is Jamey Fader.
How many stores do you operate?
Currently, we have two stores. Both buildings are about 8,000 square feet, with roughly half of that selling space plus a wine shop at each location. They are about three miles from each other.
How would you describe the neighborhoods that you operate in?
One store is in Uptown, about 10 blocks from Denver’s downtown, and the other is in Park Hill, a lovely old residential neighborhood, three miles east of Uptown.
Uptown is a dense mixed-use neighborhood, with coffee shops, businesses, restaurants, parks and, these days, more apartments and condos. Capitol Hill, the densest neighborhood in Denver, is right next to us, and is a vibrant area of older apartment buildings, grand mansions and a wonderful mash-up of customers.
Park Hill and the neighborhoods surrounding it are mostly [full of] single-family homes, schools, restaurants and small businesses. Both areas are very walkable.
We are surrounded by several other grocers, including King Soopers, Safeway, Whole Foods and its smaller spinoff, Ideal Market. Sprouts and Trader Joe’s are also close by.
What are you known for in Denver?
Marczyk’s is a full-service store, and we sell only food – no toilet paper and no toothpaste, although we do have parchment paper and cooking thermometers. We are some of the only family-owned grocery stores in Denver.
Our motto (well, one of them) is “not everything, just everything you need.”
We offer the best ingredients for breakfast, lunch and dinner, and we are particularly proud of our 22-year commitment to Niman Ranch. Our meat department is the only one in the U.S. that exclusively carries Niman Ranch beef, pork and lamb.
We are known for our market-made breads, ice cream and other things that come out of our culinary center. We are known for our curated sourcing in every department – Italian meats in the deli, cheeses from around the world and around the corner, fresh local produce in season and Colorado milk in glass bottles, among other things.
We also have well-known products, like Hellman’s mayo, Heinz ketchup and Crisco, because they are the best in their class.
What are some of the unique aspects of operating in Colorado?
When we started, we were ahead of the “where does my food come from” trend. Customers didn’t understand why our pork was more expensive, no one knew about CAFOs or how meat was raised. Thankfully, awareness levels have increased during the past two decades.
For Pete, the provenance of ingredients was very important, and why and how our food supply has changed over the years. The deleterious effect it had on the taste really drove him to think a store like ours could work.
For example, the ice cream we make does not use a base from another company, we make our own base. No one does that.
How would you summarize other ways you stand out?
We provide a pleasant shopping experience. Parking is easy. Our staff is knowledgeable and friendly. And we take customers’ complaints and compliments seriously.
Is there a so-called typical customer who shops here?
Our customers are mostly locals who live within a three to five-mile radius. They are chefs and mom and dad cooks, feeding their friends and families. They come for everyday items and special occasions. Thanksgiving and Christmas are bonkers here.
They know they can trust us to find the best ingredients and fun new items to try. They buy the prepared food meals when they are in a rush. They shop like Europeans – not filling up a large cart with a week’s worth of food but coming in regularly to see what’s fresh.
How does this influence your buying decisions?
We keep an eye out for what’s new. Remember bone broth? We made it. Smoked paprika? We added it. Our customers have the desire to use great healthy ingredients, but what they don’t have is time. So we are constantly looking for products we can make, or buy, that help them get dinner on the table.
We sell our soups in the freezer and in the prep food case. Our frozen chicken pot pies are super popular, as are our classic prep food items – mac and cheese, penne bolognese, several salads and sides, a slice of cake or a key lime pie. We make all these things fresh in our culinary center.
We also stock great grocery items. Whether you’re cooking Asian or Italian, we have the ingredients for that, too.
How would you describe your assortment strategy?
We focus on the center of the plate. Our meat department is a big driver. We have in-house butchers and do not pre-wrap the meats, so customers need to order directly from the butchers and meat staff.
Our produce changes with the season, and our grocery aisles are always busy. For example, we have jarred tomatoes from an Italian family. They grow, harvest and jar them themselves. We are the only people in Denver to carry this incredible product. We love opportunities to be the exclusive retailer for various products.
Are local products a focal point?
We try to carry as many local things as we can but often run into the fact that the companies don’t have a distributor. So, produce in spring, summer and fall often comes from nearby. We sell year-round hydroponic tomatoes that are fantastic.
Our branded coffee is from a coffee roaster in Vail, made by friends we have known for 30 years. If a local company is making cured meats, and we like the product, we’ll carry it.
Where did the inspiration for the store’s interior design come from?
Our brand is very important to us, and Pete was clear on how he wanted the stores to look. The primary colors are red, black, white and grey. White subway tiles. Poured concrete floors, chrome and wood.
Pete, Paul and I grew up back East, went to the old-school grocery stores and wanted to tap into that memory and vibe. It’s amazing how many people come in and say this reminds me of my grocery store back East.
How many employees work for you?
About 90, spread between the two stores and the culinary center.
Share a little about your hiring and retention strategy.
Finding people to work after COVID was a challenge, even with Denver’s minimum wage at $18, but it’s getting easier in part because we heavily invest in our staff.
Pete was a broker for Merrill Lynch when we met, and he knows it’s important to pay a living wage, provide benefits and give people a way to live in this town without needing three jobs to survive.
We foster growth from within and offer top benefits, including profit sharing, 401k, paid dental and vision benefits, and we cover a large portion of medical.
We also practice open-book management, which helps our staff understand how our business works.
How much do you lean into technology?
Our data informs everything we do. We know our customers, what they buy, pretty much all the information we need to be successful comes from a cadre of back-office data geeks/specialists.
[There are] no plans for self-scan or click and collect. Because – and we learned this through COVID and after COVID – sometimes people really need a human to say, “Welcome in! What’s for dinner? Hello Mr. Smith!” The world can be a crazy place, so it’s nice to buy your groceries from someone who is there for you.
What can we expect next from Marczyk Fine Foods?
We are very excited to announce that we are opening a deli at Denver International Airport. [We’ll be offering] grab-and-go and made-to-order sandwiches, sides, soups, snacks and more.
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