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Emmanuel's Effect
It's Still The Store That Centers Marbletown...

STONE RIDGE – It's far from being a big supermarket. Indeed, compared to some of the behemoths in that world, Emmanuel's Market in Stone Ridge is really just medium sized. But it seems stuffed, it carries more items than markets twice its size, and from its polished, beautiful produce section to the aisles of everything, customers can find just about anything they need.

That's Emmanuel's supermarket, the anchor store in the commercial plaza just south of the village area of Stone Ridge.

Michael Warren, supervisor for the Town of Marbletown, notes how the plaza serves the town.

"It's the commercial town center," he said in a recent interview, following a similar paean to Emmanuel's delivered at a recent Rondout Valley Business Association breakfast. "Those are all local businesses there, except for the Rite Aid and the bank. And they support each other because they draw in business together."

The flagship, and biggest draw, remains Emmanuel's Market... which made the rest possible.

"Having an owner like Jimmy Emmanuel is just invaluable, because he's such a stickler for keeping things in tip top shape," Warren added. "Everything is so clean and sparkling, and he also takes pride in the landscaping and keeping the parking lots clean."

Emmanuel's opened in 1997, not that long ago... though for many it seems almost impossible to recall the previous era, when there was just the Stone Ridge Supermarket.

James "Jimmy" Emmanuel recalls how it all happened.

"Well, I grew up in the business... In a deli in Saugerties, as it happens. We lived upstairs and needless to say when I came home from school I had my chores," he recalled. "My dad always had a list for me to do before I could go out. The list was always on the door of the fridge!"

Emmanuel went into partnership back in 1981, in a business with two stores — the Stone Ridge Supermarket and another one in Port Ewen. He managed the Port Ewen store first but five years later took the opportunity to come back to Stone Ridge, and then undertook the big job of opening the "new" store, which is today's Emmanuel's Market.

The first phase of the development was the pharmacy, liquor store and the old Stone Ridge Video store. A year and a half later, the supermarket arose. Eventually Jimmy took over what had become a Karate center and turned it into Emmanuel's Pedigree pet store.

The secret for Jimmy Emmanuel has always been his awareness of diversity.

"We have such a diverse area here in Marbletown," he explained. "We have the people that live here, of course, but then we have so many city folks, and then on top of that you have the campers and other visitors. So with the city folks in mind, we have a mixture of things on our shelves like they might find in their home markets. And then we emphasize a lot of local items, too, like Monkey Joe coffee, which has a lot of fans. While we carry all the national name brands, a good percentage of our groceries are from local farmers and manufacturers."

So that's why the store seems to have more choices than anywhere else?

"What many of our customers do now is just before they head home on the Thruway, they will do their shopping here for their homes in the city," Jimmy said. "It saves them time in the city and it's only two hours to get home so they pick up a lot of items here."

And the shopping center is where Marbletown meets up. The addition of the bank and the pizza parlor add to the drawing power.

"Stone Ridge isn't like Rhinebeck, where there's all sorts of restaurants and a good portion of visitors walking around on side streets," the storeowner added. "This is where everyone comes."

In that light, Emmanuel's boosts the community spirit with events like an Easter Egg Hunt.

"Oh my," Emmanuel explained. "When you have two hundred children, it's amazing how fast 3,000 Easter eggs are found! And we've been adding to this by giving away bikes, twenty-four of them this year."

Customers know the store is a local business, not an outpost of some great chain.

"Our eighty employees are local, and our customers appreciate that we know what they want. We want to say to them, 'We're local and we're thankful that they're coming to us to spend their dollars,'" Emmanuel said. But he also noted the other side of the coin, too. "One thing that's very important for us is the Rosendale Food Pantry. We put aside a couple of pallets every week of cereal and tinned goods as a donation for them. It's important for us to remember that not everyone is doing well at the same time."

To keep up with their community, Emmanuel's Market is open 7 a.m. to 9 p.m. every day except Sundays, when they close at 8.

"The only day of the year we're closed is Christmas," Jimmy Emmanuel added. "We open on all other holidays, including Thanksgiving and New Years."

Talk about centering things...



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