MarketFoods to Open New Stores, Cafe

MarketFoods Ltd. LLC plans to use the Market at Pinnacle Point in Rogers as a prototype for new stores in Tulsa and Chicago.

Rich Donckers, president of MarketFoods, said the Rogers company will open a 22,000-SF store in Tulsa in September, a 20,400-SF store in Glenview, Ill., (a suburb of Chicago) in October and a 3,000-SF Urban Espresso Cafe in downtown Chicago by June 1. The Market at Pinnacle Point contains a 1,800-SF Urban Espresso Cafe.

Donckers’ partners in MarketFoods are Collins Haynes, a Rogers architect and developer; David Montoya of Rochester, Mich.; and Carlos Rodriguez of Springdale. Montoya and Rodriguez, both of whom worked with Donckers at H.E. Butt and later at Wal-Mart Stores Inc., were added as partners in June. Gary Clay, an original partner in the Market at Pinnacle Point, has since passed away.

“Collins is an architect,” Donckers said. “Between the other three of us, we have a little over 90 years in retail food experience.”

Donckers said it will cost about $3.8 million to open each new store in a leased building. When the Market at Pinnacle Point opened in 2000, Donckers pegged the project cost at $8 million, but that included the purchase of real estate.

“In two years, we hope to have 10 or 11 open,” Donckers said, speaking of a combination of stores and stand-alone coffee shops.

Donckers said the Illinois and Tulsa plans are “definite.” He is also working on a deal to open two cafes in Houston in 2003 and two stores in suburbs of Kansas City in 2004.

“We’re aggressively pursuing locations in Houston,” he said.

Donckers said the Market at Pinnacle Point has about 75 employees, but the new Market stores will have 125 to 130 employees each. The new stores also will be larger than the 16,000-SF Market at Pinnacle Point. Each stand-alone cafe will employ 18-20 people.

Donckers said the stand-alone cafes will vary in size. Most will have 20-36 seats, but the one located in Chicago’s Dearborn Center will have about 48 seats. That cafe will cost about $500,000 to open, Donckers said.

The cafes will serve sandwiches, salads, breakfast, desserts, coffee and smoothies.

The Market stores are upscale gourmet grocery stores that specialize in “home-meal replacement,” Donckers said. The stores have a dining area, or customers can take meals with them to eat at home. In addition to prepackaged grocery items, the stores will sell meats, produce and fresh-baked goods such as breads, desserts and other bakery items. The Market store in Glenview also will contain a wine shop, he said. The Market in Tulsa’s Kingspointe Village will have a wine shop next door that is operated by a separate retailer.

Donckers said MarketFoods borrowed some ideas from Eatzi’s of Dallas and “tweaked” the experiment in Rogers until they got what they wanted.

“We’re in a fast-growing area that’s continued to grow and develop,” Donckers said of Rogers. “It has given us an opportunity to really experiment and tweak the concept.”

The neighborhoods where the new stores will be located have a population that is four to 10 times greater than Rogers, he said.

Donckers began his professional career with Jewel Food Stores in Chicago, where he worked for about 16 years. After that, he helped set up superstores in San Antonio for H.E. Butt for six years.

In 1987, Sam Walton hired Donckers to “put a food organization together” for Wal-Mart Stores Inc. That organization led to the Wal-Mart Supercenter concept, which premiered in March 1988. Donckers served as vice president of food retailing for Wal-Mart for six years.

After leaving Wal-Mart, Donckers started his own consulting business, Retail Strategies International Inc. based in Bentonville. He has served as a consultant for Wal-Mart, Flemming Inc. (which owns Consumers supermarkets), Blockbuster Video, Viacom (Blockbuster’s parent company), Hudson Foods Inc., Food Brands America and Hussman Refrigeration.