5:53pm | Yesterday, a hearing was held concerning whether Kress Market would be granted a conditional use permit (CUP) modification concerning the sale of distilled spirits. Below is an open letter from owner/operator Javier Ortiz is circulating via Facebook:
Friends and Neighbors,
We have now been in business for over a year and due to different factors have not reached profitability, yet. The business is still very slow and the tough economy shows no signs of improvement. Now, that Fresh and Easy moved to the neighborhood, we need to make changes.
After evaluating the most efficient method to improve sales, without sacrificing the quality and class of our establishment, we have decided to request modification of our existing liquor license to allow us to sell distilled spirits.
As some of you might now tomorrow is the hearing for the CUP Modification for our Liquor License. We currently have license for Beer and Wine and we’d like to expand it to be able to sell distilled spirits too, to help our sales volume/revenue.
Please if you can come to the hearing to support us and if you could talk in our behalf even better.
Hearing is at the City Hall at 5:00 PM. Hope to see you tomorrow!!
Thanks,
Javier Ortiz
562-715-4142
Kress Market
443 Pine Ave.
Long Beach, CA 90802
Javier Ortiz of the Kress Market in downtown in Long Beach.
December 9, 10:15am | It was July 2010 when the Ortizes — Javier and Hilda — opened Kress Market. They knew it was a down economy. They knew Long Beach had challenges. But it was the chance for them to fulfill a dream.
They just didn’t know the dream was going to be this hard.
“We always wanted to have this kind of business — all organic, all healthy,” Javier tells me from across the table in the café side of his clean, modest market/deli that wraps around the corner of Pine Avenue and 5th Street with a line of sidewalk seating. The place is empty on this early Saturday evening. Foot traffic — mostly teenagers clad in urban streetwear — is light.
“It’s been very tough,” Javier confesses. “Not enough people.”
But he and Hilda like the neighborhood, he says, a neighborhood in a city they find “very magical.” He thinks it’s a good place to have a business. Aside, of course, from the lack of people.
“I don’t know what the City is supposed to do or can do, or the resources that they have,” Javier says. “But at the end, if people don’t decide to buy here, that’s the bottom line.”
A small sampling of what’s on offer:
Organic beefsteak tomatoes, $2.69/lb. Organic portabella mushrooms, $2.29/lb. Organic oats, $1.49/lb. Raw sunflower seeds, $3.09/lb. Organic quinoa $6.59/lb. Craft beers such as Bison Brewing Organic Chocolate Stout, Port Brewing Wipeout IPA, Lagunitas A Little Sumpin’ Sumpin’ Ale. Organic Sweet Leaf lemonade and iced tea. Organic nigori sake. Red Stone Meadery boysenberry nectar. Primal Spirit Foods meatless vegan jerky (so good!). Fresh produce delivered daily.
Kress Market isn’t the cheapest place around. But as Javier says, a small business providing a variety of high-quality produce (much of it grown locally) and hard-to-find items (many in response to customer request) can’t wholesale. This may be a classic case of getting what you pay for.
“People need to realize to buy local. Because all these people eat,” Javier says. “The only way things are going to change is if people buy from independent businesses. … We keep adding to the inventory. We talk to our customers, try to make sure that they’re happy, that we’ve got what they want.”
That in September a Fresh & Easy opened up two blocks away hasn’t helped his bottom line. Despite not all that much direct overlap in the two markets’ inventories, Javier says Kress Market has seen a 10-20% drop-off in business.
“[T]he market share is the same, but it’s divided [among] more [businesses],” Javier says.” There’s only one pie, and everybody takes a piece. My piece got smaller.”
The reason? Javier thinks it’s largely because Fresh & Easy, whatever its merits, is seen as a cheaper, lower-quality alternative to Kress Market — and that for a lot of people, price is the bottom line.
“Wine,” Javier says by way of example. “They have cheaper wine. And if people want to have a bottle of wine and they don’t want to spend a lot of money, before they might [have] come here and b[ought] the cheapest wine. Now they go to Fresh & Easy and find something cheaper. … They have cheaper bottles. Not as good as ours, but cheaper.”
Kress Market also has a deli serving up freshly-made smoothies, sandwiches, and more at prices more expensive than Subway but comparable to other delis. And here, of course, it’s all organic.1
Javier feels parking is a problem, perhaps because it’s not readily apparent to many visitors that they get two hours of free parking in the same parking structure that services the nearby Fresh & Easy and Walmart.
That doesn’t help Javier and his employees, of course. “[I]t would be nice if I could park my car somewhere, or my employees for free,” he says. “I have an employee, he has to park down the street. It’s not the safest place to park. And I don’t pay him enough for him to pay $55 [per month to park in a nearby lot].”
Javier would also like to see more events on Pine Avenue north of 3rd Street. Javier and his fellow business owners founded the Historic Old Pine Avenue Business District (HOPA), which is trying to help the area with events like Twilight Walk, when every third Friday the businesses offer food, drink, and music inside and out. “That helps a lot, bringing a little life to this street,” Javier says. “But one day [a month] is not going to change my whole year.”
What would change Kress Market’s day-to-day reality is more people in the area, the kind of thing Javier hopes will come with further development of North Pine, such as the former Press-Telegram building.
Javier is convinced that eventually Pine Avenue is going to be great — it’s just a question of how soon. But for Kress Market, how soon may make all the difference.
In the meantime, Javier and Hilda are going to persevere in trying to make their dream a happy one.
“We’re going to stick to the organic, high-quality [products],” Javier says. “I believe there is a niche for it. That’s the only way for us to survive, too. … This is what we have a passion for. It’s like, if you love baseball, you have a passion for baseball. This is what we love. This is the business we wanted all our lives. And hopefully we can retire doing this.”
Kress Market (443 Pine Ave.) is open 8:00am-8:00pm Sunday through Thursday, and ’til 9:00pm Friday and Saturday. For more info, call (562) 436-8300 or visit www.kressmarket.com.
1I’ve had the Kress Signature Sandwich (grilled chicken breast, mozzarella cheese, onion, carrots, beet, spinach, lettuce, alfalfa sprouts, low-fat yogurt, cilantro and cucumber; served on multigrain ciabatta) and the Veggie Pleasure (red tomatoes, yellow and red pepper, balsamic vinaigrette, light mayo, mushrooms, cucumbers, fresh basil and goat cheese; on multigrain ciabatta). Highly recommended.