After decades in the business, Jerry Thomas decided that it was time to say goodbye to the day to day operations of local landmark Thomas Market.  The fellow Associated Foods store Broulim’s has purchased the store, and will be taking over operations starting later in the month.

According to Thomas, there will not be any major staffing changes as a result of the move. The store itself will remain largely the same, although Broulim’s has future plans to add to the store’s footprint, as well as expand the frozen food and deli offerings.

“Everything should stay the same.  Broulim’s is the same as us—Associated Food Stores.  They’ve been in the business a hundred and two years.  They’re based out of Rigby, and they’re family-owned.  They’ve been a member of the Associated Foods from the first,” Thomas says.  “All employees will stay the same.  They’re going to expand the departments and do a little changing around to make it better.  Stuff that I wanted to do, but never dove into yet.”  

This will be the eleventh Broulim’s store, joining those in Soda Springs, Montpelier, Afton, and others.

“We’ve been family friends forever,” Jerry says, about the new owners.  “Over fifty years probably.  My dad was friends with [owner] Dick, and I’ve been friends with [son] Robert and the others and their kids and grandkids, basically since the seventies.  We’ve been on family trips with them, and we’ve been pretty close for a lot of years.”

Broulim’s is in the process of hiring a store director and a grocery manager to replace Jerry.  “We have 53 employees, so they’ll use most of the employees we’ve got, I imagine.  Initially they’re going to move the produce around and expand the bakery and the deli.  They’re going to have sushi every day.”  

In a bit of news that will certainly affect many in town, Thomas announced that Broulim’s is “going to stay open on Sundays.” 

One question that Thomas was not able to immediately answer was whether Broulim’s will continue to feature local market sale meat following fair time.  “I know they sponsor the 4-H in their areas, but we’ll have to see.  We’re really lucky in this area, because we have Rick Theurer over in Lewiston [Utah], and now we’ve got Tom [Maddox] over in Downey.  They’re USDA cutters, which is the only way I’m able to sell it out of the store here.”

Asked how he arrived at the decision to sell, Thomas said, “The main thing is I didn’t want to get involved in the cost and process of expansion, from now until I’m in my seventies,” he laughs.  His kids have decided that they do not want to take over the operation, and Thomas matriarch Brenda decided she was interested in retiring, so “it just seemed like a good time.”

Thomas plans to continue running some of the other businesses he is involved with, including storage sheds, property investment, and rental houses locally and in Star Valley.

There are a lot of memories wrapped up in Thomas Market for Jerry and his family, of course.  In a town the size of Malad, it’s virtually impossible for Jerry not to spend his day talking with people he knows well.  In fact, while we were chatting, his childhood friend John Williams stopped in to make sure that it was widely known that “Jerry is the one who burned down Jack’s Snacks!”  (It’s a tangent, but it may be explored down the road…)  

Like many people in town, Jerry has known John most of his life.  As they tell it, John’s dad was the Wonder Bread representative at the time, and the two met at around 3 or 4 years old on the step of a delivery truck snacking on illicit Twinkies liberated from the supplies.  “We had just moved over from Montpelier, where we had a store,” Jerry said.  “And when my grandpa heard about what we were doing, he said, ‘well, I wondered how long it would take you two to meet!’”

Thomas doesn’t plan to move in the near term, which is good news for all of those who have come to know him over the years and value his friendship and central role in the life of the town.