Your Hometown Market has new owners
WILTON – Allen Kaplan carried a brown package on his shoulder as he entered the store.
“Bags are here,” the new owner of Your Hometown Market said as he placed them on the counter.
Kaplan followed a delivery man to a back room. Then he was back out front.
Kaplan and his wife, Susan, a nurse manager at the emergency room at Franklin Memorial Hospital in Farmington, took over the market last Thursday.
The couple bought the Main Street store in East Wilton from longtime owner Debbie Foss of Wilton.
The store, which offers a variety of items such as household staples and takeout food, was bustling with customers Wednesday. Kaplan was joking with them as they entered the store.
“He’s a people person,” Susan Kaplan said about her husband.
Taking requests
Allen Kaplan, who plans to be a hands-on owner, is already putting requested items on the shelves.
On Tuesday, a woman made beef stew and ran out of crackers and came in looking for some, Kaplan said.
He gave her some small individually wrapped packages and ordered some boxes, which came in Wednesday.
“My theory is I’m trying to have the area people tell us what they like,” Kaplan said. “We’re here to serve the customers.”
The Kaplans including daughter, Andrea, 12, had a house built by the late Butch Weed on Magrath Road in Wilton.
Susan Kaplan’s relatives live in the area. Her grandfather and great-grandfather owned and operated the NW Sewall Hardware Store in Wilton many years ago.
Susan moved up in June 2003 and Allen followed Feb. 1.
Allen stayed behind to finish work for a medical supply company and wait for their house to sell.
It was Kaplan’s wife and Weed who talked him into buying the store.
“We were talking about moving up and, when Sue got the job, we decided we were moving faster than we wanted to,” Kaplan said.
Perfecting the pizza
It didn’t take much to convince him to buy the store, he loves to cook, Kaplan said, though he’s still working on making pizza.
Kaplan and store Manager Heather Pratt worked 20 hours apiece the first day. Now there’s help and the hours have been reduced.
Most of the store’s offerings have stayed the same or expanded. New are self-pump canisters of coffee, croissant sandwiches, bagel breakfast sandwiches, dairy products and household supplies. Kaplan also plans to do catering platters.
A lottery scratch ticket system was installed Wednesday and, by early afternoon, there was already a $20 winner.
On Thursday, certain credit cards and debit cards will be accepted.
The couple has more plans to expand the product line in time.
“It’s great,” Kaplan said. “It’s getting easier everyday.”
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