Mi Pueblo Food Center
ier Ramirez | locations = 15 | foundation = 1991 | defunct = July 2017 | location = San Jose, California, U.S. }}
Mi Pueblo was a Northern California neighborhood grocery chain based in San Jose, California.[1] Mi Pueblo had a total of 22 store locations throughout the San Francisco Bay Area, Central Valley and Monterey Bay Peninsula. It attempted to emulate the fresh-food markets of Mexico and Latin America while also carrying all the grocery items generally available in mainstream supermarkets.[2]
Mi Pueblo was established in 1991.[3] In 2016, Kohlberg Kravis Roberts purchased Mi Pueblo along with Ontario, California–based Cardenas. The two chains merged in July 2017, and the Mi Pueblo brand was phased out the following year.[4]
History and founder
Juvenal Chavez is founder and the Chairman of the Board of Mi Pueblo. Chavez emigrated from Mexico in 1984 and spoke no English at the time, taking odd jobs while attending night school to learn English. At one point he worked as a janitor at Stanford University.[5] and in 1986, he went into business with his brother running Chavez Meat Market.[6] In 1991, deciding to go off on his own, he purchased Country Time Meats in San Jose, California, starting his mercantile chain. Chavez opened his first business in the Bay Area because he found that the Hispanic population was very under-served and needed to purchase food easily without being impeded by their lack of knowledge in the English language. He started with the meat business because it was the most obvious opportunity. Over time he expanded into produce, bakery and deli, then grocery.[3] Now Mi Pueblo is a $300 million business, with 19 stores opened and significant growth on the horizon.[5]
Leadership
04/chavez-out-as-mi-pueblo-ceo-successor-named.html?page=all|title=Chavez out as Mi Pueblo CEO, successor named|website=Bizjournals.com|access-date=24 June 2019}}</ref>
Ramirez was also joined by Martin Cortes as Chief Financial Officer and Jose Aguayo as Vice President of Human Resources to help stabilize the company from a financial and staffing standpoint.
Departments, products & services
Mi Pueblo has seven different departments in the store. The first department is the meat department, offering a wide variety of Latin American styled marinated meats, entrails, poultry and seafood - along with a full-service butcher staff.[3] The next department is the produce department.[6] The third department is the bakery, featuring items such as bolillos, tres leches cake and pan dulce. The Tortilleria, one of the most popular departments, prepares warm, fresh tortillas on a daily basis. The Hot Deli department offers a diverse selection of dishes from Mexico and Latin America. The seafood department offers a wide variety of fish, shrimp and freshly prepared dishes.
The full-service grocery department features over 17,000 imported products as well as mainstream and national brand labels. In October 2014, Mi Pueblo started offering a full range of Western Union services throughout all its stores in the Bay Area, Monterey Peninsula and Central Valley[7] to enhance existing customer needs such as check cashing, utility payments, money transfers and money orders. Tickets to local events are also available at Mi Pueblo.
Bankruptcy
Community involvement
In 2011 Md a scholarship program to "help students prepare for a brighter future". In 2014, Mi Pueblo in collaboration with Mexican Heritage Corporation, raised over $100,000 to provide adequate legal representation to unaccompanied minors at the U.S border through its month- long campaign Un
References
- ^ "City's Mi Pueblo Food Center thriving". Patch.com. 28 June 2010. Retrieved 24 June 2019.
- ^ Himmel, Sheila. Filling Shopping Carts, and a Community Need." The New York Times. January 14, 2010. Retrieved on February 2, 2013.
- ^ a b c "Archived copy". Archived from the original on 2011-07-16. Retrieved 2010-11-25.
{{cite web}}: CS1 maint: archived copy as title (link) - ^ Stoepfel, Bryce (February 14, 2018). "Mi Pueblo becomes Cardenas Market". Gilroy Dispatch. Retrieved June 3, 2018.
- ^ a b "Mi Pueblo bags $300M in revenue." San Francisco Business Times. July 18, 2010. Retrieved on February 2, 2013.
- ^ a b "Mi Pueblo owner has more in store." Silicon Valley Business Journal. June 11, 2006. Retrieved on February 2, 2013.
- ^ "The Western Union Company - Western Union Continues Expansion; Signs Mi Pueblo". Ir.westernunion.com. Retrieved 24 June 2019.[dead link]
External links
Media related to Mi Pueblo Food Center at Wikimedia Commons- Mi Pueblo Foods
