For Aaron Stone, working at Mollie Stone’s Markets was never really a question. Growing up surrounded by the family business, it always felt like the natural path. And that’s where he is now ensconced after stops at a top business school in Arizona and a semester living in Spain.
“It’s like a dream,” said Stone of working for the family business. He serves as VP of special projects and business development at the Bay Area grocery chain that his family has built over four decades.
“We’re grateful that we’re able to do it together, enjoying every day and our time together,” said Stone, who is the younger son of co-founder Mike Stone. “It’s a great opportunity to be able to work with your family.”
Stone and his older brother Elliott both attended Arizona State University’s W.P. Carey School of Business – one of the country’s most well-regarded business programs – where Aaron earned a bachelor’s degree in business communications with a minor in real estate.
The brothers had one year of overlap on campus, shared a friend group and the same fraternity and have remained close. “We’ve always been really close and have a great relationship,” Aaron said of the COO.
Starting at the bottom – and staying hands-on
Stone has been clocking hours at Mollie Stone’s since he was a teenager. That ground-level experience has shaped the way he approaches his role today, even as the company has grown significantly over the past 15-plus years.
Aaron, now 32, started working at age 15 and has filled numerous positions around the store. And he keeps those skills sharpened by pitching in at the stores in the peak season, particularly during the Thanksgiving and Christmas weeks.
“Each holiday season, I get to work in meat and seafood, cracking crab and serving customers at the counter,” he said.
His formal title is intentionally broad, reflecting the reality of running a family-owned regional grocery chain.
“We are in the people business,” Stone explained. “For me, it’s being able to zoom in and zoom out at different projects or tasks to best understand what the needs of the team are and how, together, we can make a positive difference for our customers and teammates.”
Catering to community
Mollie Stone’s Markets began as a health food store, and while the chain has evolved considerably since then, its commitment to quality, customer service and offering items that shoppers want has remained a constant thread throughout its history.
“We’ve been in business for 40 years, and we couldn’t have done it without our relationships with our vendors and partners that are looking out for us throughout the supply chain,” Stone said. “I’ve been fortunate to learn and almost work twice as long as my age at this point, which sounds weird, but it’s great. I learn new things every day. Every season is different.
“We look to bring in the best quality items for people and their families that are shopping with us,” continued Stone, who is a married father of one son, with another child on the way.
“We look at what would we want to eat and serve to our families, because we’re shopping at the store.” 
The marinated air-chilled chicken selection, as well as the garlic shrimp skewers, are some of his family-favorite dinner choices.
Situated near what Stone calls “the salad bowl of California,” the company’s markets benefit from proximity to some of the region’s most productive agricultural land. But sourcing quality product, he notes, requires relationships as much as geography, and Mollie Stone’s has been building those for decades.
“It’s been a part of our fabric to work with small businesses and local produce companies to bring a unique experience to the customers in our store. My father, Mike, started us on this journey in 1986, waking up in the middle of the night to go buy produce at the San Francisco Produce Market, load it in his pickup truck and bring it to the store daily.”
That foundation lives on today, with quality and variety abundant throughout the produce department. Aaron oversees produce operations and the Produce Distribution Center, maintaining and growing those relationships that his father forged.
Building brands, partnerships
One of Mollie Stone’s most distinctive roles in the regional grocery landscape is its history of introducing emerging brands to consumers – a function Stone sees as central to what independent grocers do best.
“The independent grocers play a huge role in the incubation of emerging brands,” he said.
The company’s contribution to that tradition is even documented in popular culture; Mollie Stone’s is mentioned in an episode of the podcast “How I Built This” with Guy Raz, in the story of Method soap’s rise from small-batch product to household name.
Stone also is personally invested in finding new products to bring to shelves. On his honeymoon in Italy, he photographed a standout olive display, tracked down the supplier and used Al translation tools to open a dialogue, entirely in Italian.
“I emailed the supplier in Italian, ran it through an AI tool to translate it and sent something like ‘Hey, this is my name, this is my story. Your olives are some of the best olives I’ve tried … Teach me about the crop.’”
Long-tenured team
One of the most visible signs of Mollie Stone’s culture is its employee retention. The company has long-tenured team members in all its stores, a fact Stone attributes to leadership at every level, not just at the top.
“I like to say that we [the family] have an impact, but really, it’s the culture and leadership at the stores,” he said.
Stone explains that “store teammates make hundreds of decisions each day that make a difference to our customers in a positive way. We work together and make a great team throughout the organization.”
The company uses National Grocers Association (NGA) training programs alongside on-the-job learning, and Stone emphasized that employees are kept informed about security, safety and company mission.
Technology, trust and the future
Looking ahead, Stone is energized by what technology can do for the business, though he approaches it with the same deliberate, values-led mindset that has guided Mollie Stone’s for 40 years.
“I just think it’s such a great time with so much opportunity to be in this industry,” he said.
From modernized ordering systems to Al tools, Stone sees technology as a means to better operations and better customer experiences, not a trend to chase for its own sake. He draws a distinction between “trusted” technology platforms and more speculative ones, noting that the right partners matter as much as the right tools.
“It comes down to trust, integrity and value,” he said.
On the question of how fast technology is moving, he said, “When I was in school, it was every 18 months a new iPhone update would come out. Now it’s like every week or month a new update hits … It has moved more rapidly. But I think it’s an opportunity for us to do better, to run our business for longer and create better experiences for our customers and teammates.”
Growing smart, not just growing
As Mollie Stone’s enters its 41st year, Stone is thoughtful about what growth should look like.
“We hope to continue to build on what has been here and continue to do it together,” he said. “We don’t want to grow just to grow. I think maybe that makes us a little different.”
The company’s position – larger than a single-store operator, but far smaller than a national chain – gives it an agility that Stone sees as a genuine competitive advantage.
“We like to think we’re a speedboat,” he said, describing how the company can take on small batches of emerging products, test them in select stores and pivot quickly if needed. “If it doesn’t work, moves can be made right away.”
While the big chains have advantages in scale and systems, Stone believes Mollie Stone’s edge lies in something harder to replicate.
“We have everything in the grocery industry … food, people, HR, finance, accounting, real estate, technology and much more. We have all the big components that make running a business fun, and then you get to do it with your family – that’s the dream. I enjoy it and want to pass that passion on to our teams.”
With a growing family of his own, Aaron Stone is keenly aware of what he hopes to pass on someday.
“We hope that one day they want to come to work here,” he said. “But we’ll see. Time will tell if they’ll be interested in it.”