Grocery store celebrates 100-year legacy, late former owner

By Tiffany Tarpley

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    LORAIN, Ohio (WEWS) — Fligner’s Market is celebrating 100 years in business. The grocery staple has made a real impact on the Lorain community. It began as Lorain Cut-Rate Fruit Company back in 1924. It’s been in the same location and has expanded over the years.

“Everybody that works here is family oriented and if they recognize your face they’re all very happy to see you actually, and they’re very helpful,” said longtime customer Laura Jordan. “My grandmother lived right around the corner so we used to come when it was a very small, small store and I would come with her.”

Most customers have a similar story, whether it’s about the store itself, the employees or the family who runs the business.

Kel Fligner, 84, owned the store for decades. Good Morning Cleveland Anchor Tiffany Tarpley spoke with him about this milestone less than two weeks before his untimely death.

He started working for his father at a very young age.

“In those days you didn’t have a lot of groceries in the store, people canned their own stuff, cooked their own stuff, it’s not like today, everything’s prepared,” he said.

Fligner said his father didn’t want him going into the business but he loved the people and the meat.

“I was a meat cutter and I cut meat for all those years, from cutting meat by hand to finally cutting meat with band saws, but I loved it and it was just something about it,” he said. “We used to have big crowds of people in front of the meat counter and customers would be talking and it was just a whole different world.”

Fligner said that the meat counter still draws people from far and wide today.

“People come from an hour and a half away to buy meat here,” he said. “Beautiful cattle, all local cattle, we have the nicest help, we really do.”

Customers and workers have told stories about how Fligner has helped them over the years. It’s something he learned from his grandmother.

“I’ve always tried to do my best to help other people because I’m so thankful that my family is not in need.”

Fligner said one of his sons and grandsons now own the business.

On June 22, a celebration will be held at the store to mark the 100-year anniversary, and now it will be a celebration of Fligner’s life and legacy. His son said he was looking forward to the event.

“He really just put his heart and soul into that store and I think the longevity and the amount of time that it was able to be a thriving business and continues to be a thriving business is really his legacy that he’s leaving, not only to this employees that he considered family, but everyone who supported his store through the years,” said son Jon Fligner. “My brother Ben has been running the store from a primary presidential standpoint for probably the last 15 to 20 years, and we have every intention of continuing to deliver the same high quality that my dad set the bar for, my brother will continue to provide that service to the community.”

The Kel Memorial Scholarship Fund has been set up at Lorain County Community College. Jon Fligner said it’s available for students who graduated from Lorain City Schools.

The family will receive friends on Sunday, June 9, from 11 a.m. – 2 p.m. at Dovin Reber Jones Funeral and Cremation Center. A private service for the family will be held afterward.

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