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Longtime southwest Detroit grocer is celebrating 50 years in business on Saturday with a cake and cupcakes and other in-store specials.Prince Valley Market, known for it sspecialties like tamales, is celebrating 50 years of serving the southwest Detroit community.
Southwest Detroit grocer Joe Gappy remembers standing outside the grocery store his family owned on the north side of Michigan Avenue and looking across the street at a Kroger store.
Fifty years later, that one-time Kroger grocery and Pay And Save store is now home to Prince Valley Market.
To mark its 50-year milestone, on Saturday, the market is hosting a free, public birthday party. The anniversary celebration also comes during National Hispanic Heritage Month, which runs through Oct. 15. There will be cake, cupcakes, a tasting of the market’s in-house specialties and other festivities.
It was September 1975 when Gappy’s father, Hani Gappy, who arrived in the late 1960s from Baghdad, Iraq, opened the first Prince Valley Market across from the then-Kroger store.
Prince Valley Market first focused on the area’s mainly Eastern European customers. Since then, the bustling market serves the surrounding and significant Latino community and others.
“Catering to the community around us has always been the key,” said Joe Gappy, who now owns and runs the store, in a news release. “Today, you’ll find everyone shopping here — from longtime Detroiters to families from Mexico, Puerto Rico, Cuba, Honduras, and more. That diversity is what makes Prince Valley unique.”
The full-service market offers fresh meats and a vast selection of produce and groceries, including a whole aisle devoted to Hispanic products. Its meat counter is where customers will find a large volume of marinated meats.
Prince Valley Market is well known for its bakery department, where they make and beautifully decorate cakes daily.
Along with cakes and baked goods, there are breads like bolillos and Cuban flatbreads. Prince Valley Market also offers a vast selection of grab-and-go meals, with, of course, a specialty of Mexican cuisine, including tamales.
Tamales, Gappy said, are handmade, and they sell more than 1,000 daily. Tamales varieties, hot or mild, include chicken, pork and beef. There are also varieties of house-made hot and mild salsa and guacamole.
Gappy grew up in the grocery business and worked in every department, from stocking shelves to working in the meat department. It was 2001, Gappy said, when his father bought the former Pay And Save building and moved his Prince Valley Market to that location at 5931 Michigan Ave. in Detroit.
The now 25,000-square-foot store also includes bill paying services such as DTE Energy payments and City of Detroit payments, money wiring services and a post office.
More than 110 people are employed at Prince Valley Market, Gappy said.
“For us, Prince Valley isn’t just a supermarket — it’s an extension of our family,” said Gappy. “Our customers have been shopping here for generations. They know they can expect quality merchandise, freshness, and aromas you won’t find anywhere else.”
Contact Detroit Free Press food and restaurant writer Susan Selasky and send food and restaurant news and tips to: sselasky@freepress.com. Follow @SusanMariecooks on Twitter.