Focus on food: March 19, 2009

60 Years for Lees!!!

Check out some great pictures from the Lees 60th Pre Party by Southcoast Today!

Lees Market is unique family owned Local supermarket that has been rooted in the community for 60 YEARS. Lees Supermarket is Westport's neighborhood store.

How did it all get started? Back in the late 1940s, Al Lees II was a teenager living with his parents over the family's fish market on Lees Wharf at the Point. In March 1949, Al, and his father, Al Lees, opened a general store in a converted barn on the east side of Main Road across from where the Santos farm is today. The business, Albert E. Lees, Inc., sold mostly hardware, seeds, and fertilizer. In early 1951, an International Harvester outlet in Central Village went bankrupt and was put up for sale. The Lees family went to the auction expecting only to bid on a few small items to add to their stock. When it came time to sell the building the auctioneer had trouble coaxing a bid from the crowd. The Lees put their heads together and made an offer. The auctioneer shouted, "Sold!"
Suddenly, Al Lees and his father owned a new store. They quickly got to work, fixing up the place, moving in stock. In November 1951, they held a Grand Opening. The curious came through the door just to see what was happening. A steady stream of customers has been coming back ever since.

The community associates Lees Supermarket with innovation. People say, "You have to give Al Lees II credit - he's was never afraid to try something new." It's risky staying out there on the cutting edge, but holding onto customer’s demands creativity and a fresh approach. If something doesn't work, as Albert Lees II and his son Albert Lees III would say, "You scrap the idea, regroup, and try something else." The half-century long history of Lees Supermarket is one of continuous growth and change. Lees started out selling general merchandise; hardware, clothing, toys, and the absence of food. Lees Market sold these types of goods for most of the 1950s. Then the big discount outlets like Ann and Hope appeared on the scene, with their huge inventories and rock-bottom prices. The
Lees correctly decided they could not compete. Around 1960, the first food items of dry milk and bread were introduced into the Main Road store. Other groceries soon followed. The now famous Lees meat department began with a second-hand meat case that measured six feet long. Gradually hammers and shoes yielded to breakfast cereals and steak. By 1965, with Al Lees at the helm, the transition from general merchandise to groceries was complete.

In the 1970s and 1980s Lees Supermarket continued to grow. The building spread in all four directions, with twelve new additions along with a bakery and delicatessen. The meat department dramatically enlarged and the liquor store opened in 1981. Each of these expansions involved an element of risk, failure and success was never guaranteed. The entire story of Lees Market is one of beating the odds. The conventional wisdom predicted a supermarket in Central Village would not be able to survive. A previous study by one of the major food retail chains concluded the demographics of the location were all out of whack and that there wouldn’t be enough customers.

The following is from an interview with Al Lees II August 14, 1975…
How do you think Lees Market became as large as it is?
Albert Lees II…

Well, I would be less than honest if I didn't say that I studied it in great depth and most of the changes I've made, and the enlargements I've made, have been after a lot of research. I did a lot of it myself, of course, knowing the town; I got into my automobile and drove up and down the roads and projected the population increase. We've had sort of a population explosion in the last five or eight years, but I had projected that prior to this. Maybe it was due to intuition or native intelligence or whatever, but fortunately, I was able to put the pieces together and say, 'Well now, next year the town can support a business of such and such a size,' so I would build prior to the town's building in
anticipation of what was going to happen, and that even happened in relation to this last addition. My business has mushroomed, and it almost appears as though it happened overnight, but it didn't, for years I've built towards it. It happened to fall into place, but it's something that I had preplanned.

Albert pays a tribute to his namesake when he answers, "My father's vision and determination made it happen; without his drive nothing you see here would have been possible."

Al Lees was the first to acknowledge his success is a team effort, involving many people. When Albert took over the business in 1990, he installed computerized registers. In 1994, he introduced the Lees Market scan card making Lees one of the first supermarkets in the country to implement this new technology. The frequent shopper cards offer buyer’s discounts and savings on items available throughout the store. Gourmet selections were soon added to the prepared foods department in the Country Kitchen.

One of the most recent additions was the new Wine Department and Westport Cooks Room. The Lees Wine Department offers an incredible variety of liquors, beer, wine and spirits. There was also the addition of the Scotch & Whiskey Room. The Westport Cooks is a regular gathering place where cooking classes are held, and where the local community makes use its facilities.

In the past few years, Lees has introduced The Rotisserie Café, providing Lees Market Shoppers with hot prepared foods at affordable prices. The latest additions have been Lees Online Shopping and the Blue Lobster Café.

Community involvement and service are watchwords of the Lees organization. Numerous local fund raising efforts have gained from Lees' commitment to give something back to the town. Recently, many area non-profits have participated in a register receipt return program that supports service groups of every possible persuasion. But community involvement means more than channeling dollars into important local causes. It's giving countless young Westport High School students their first real chance at a job. It's finding space on the shelves for local products, like Macomber turnips, hydroponic lettuce, and wine. It's providing parents the opportunity to see their child's crayon drawing of the Easter Bunny suspended from the ceiling. People remember things like that. They don't
forget during the Blizzard of 1978, Al Lees sent trailers all the way to Connecticut so the local communities would be able to put food on the table. One year during the hectic holiday season, with long lines at the check out counters, all the computers suddenly crashed, and Lees sent everybody home with their groceries on the honor system. That was a neighborly thing to do and what Lees Market is all about.

In the past twenty years, Albert and the Lees Team have taken Lees Market into the new century. Albert has taken the family philosophy and blended it with his own. The philosophy of serving the local communities while treating your suppliers, workers, and customers with respect and appreciation. You have to be willing to take a chance while trying to do something you love. Work hard and everything will turn out right. It's a philosophy that will be the foundation of Lees Market as the store looks ahead to its next sixty years… We appreciate you shopping here at Lees Market.

Original article by: Rich Lapointe Updated by: Chris Rossi 2009