Stew Leonard's
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| Stew Leonard's | |
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| Type | Private |
|---|---|
| Founded | In 1969 in Norwalk, Connecticut |
| Headquarters | Norwalk, Connecticut |
| Key people | Stew Leonard, Jr., President and CEO |
| Industry | Grocery store |
| Products | Food |
| Revenue | $293 million USD (2004) |
| Employees | 1,819 |
| Website | www.stewleonards.com |
Stew Leonard's (Stew's as it is known locally) is a chain of supermarkets in Connecticut and New York that Ripley's Believe It or Not! has deemed "The World's Largest Dairy Store." Founded in 1969 with seven employees in Norwalk, Connecticut, there currently are also stores in Danbury, Connecticut, and in Yonkers, New York. The chain is currently working on its newest store in Newington, Connecticut, which is scheduled to open in April, 2007. There are also plans to open stores in Orange, Connecticut, and in Farmingdale, New York. The Farmingdale store technically exists, but its current zoning permit has only allowed the wine shop portion to be open and the opening of the rest is pending in court.
The store is also known for its customer-service policy, which greets shoppers at each store's entrance etched into a three-ton rock:
- The customer is always right.
- If the customer is ever wrong, re-read rule #1.
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[edit] The Store
The New York Times called Stew Leonard's the "Disneyland of Dairy Stores." The stores are not set up like traditional grocery stores; one must walk through the entire store (though there are short cuts), even to get a carton of milk. As customers walk through a path of aisles, they are greeted by different farm animals (employees dressed up in costumes), and animatronic favorites such as Twinkie the Kid, the Chiquita banana, and a cow's head that moos when one pulls its rope. The stores also feature petting zoos and outdoor cafes in the warmer months and sell a variety of prepared meals year round.
[edit] The Business
Stew Leonard's is not only the world's largest dairy store; it is also in the Guinness Book of World Records for having "the greatest sales per unit area of any single food store in the United States." It has been listed as one of Fortune Magazine's top 100 businesses to work for six years in a row. It currently has annual sales of around $300 million and has about 2,000 employees.
[edit] Controversy
In 1993, founder Stew Leonard, Sr., pleaded guilty to defrauding the U.S. government of approximately $6.8 million in taxes, in what the IRS called at the time, "the largest such case in the country in which a computer was used." [1] He no longer runs the operations; each store is now individually run by one of his children. Leonard, Sr., served 52 months in prison.
