When customers enter Acme Fresh Market’s new Medina store, they’ll be greeted with a honeycomb ceiling design referencing bees — after all, Medina is known for beekeeping and members of the family behind the grocery chain have also been involved in it.
Nick Albrecht, president of Akron-based Acme, is the current beekeeper in the family. It’s something his father and his grandfather also did, he said.
Offering local and hyperlocal, Medina-made items, Acme’s Medina store opened its doors to the public at 7 a.m. on Aug. 7 — with Medina-themed commemorative tote bags. The totes have a print of a honeycomb pattern — and a bee, just above a design of the gazebo in Medina’s Public Square.
“I think one of the touches that Acme brings to the community is that we are embedded in Northeast Ohio. This is our home,” Albrecht said. “And getting to learn more about the communities is something that is what we do. We’re good at doing that.”
As for the tote bags, they are available to customers who sign up for an Acme Loyalty Card, or if they already have one, present it, said Katie Swartz, Acme’s vice president of marketing and Albrecht’s sister.
The 56,210-square-foot store, at 1225 S. Court St. in Medina, includes a bakery, deli, full-service meat department and pharmacy.
The store’s hours are 7 a.m. to 10 p.m., every day of the week. Pickup and delivery are available to Acme Loyalty members 8 a.m. to 8 p.m. every day. The store’s pharmacy hours are 9 a.m. to 8 p.m. Monday through Friday and 9 a.m. to 6 p.m. Saturday and Sunday.
Customers who sign up for an Acme Loyalty Card receive discounts on select items and participate in grocery pickup and delivery. The sign-up page for the card is acmestores.com/acmemedina.
“We also have a contest where everyone who opens a new card is entered to win a $500 Acme gift card,” Swartz said. The contest runs through Aug. 20, she said.
What’s in the new Acme store in Medina?
The Medina Acme’s locally made products include candles from Medina-based Root Candles/The A. I. Root Company, cut flowers from Uniontown-based Bloom Hill and coffee from Medina-based Cool Beans Coffee.
Of the local coffee shop, Swartz said, “I’m excited to try the Medina Square Blend; that’s going to be the first thing I buy from this store.”
Medina is dubbed as “The sweetest town on Earth” for beekeeping and honey production, as well as candle making, due to the more-than-150-year-old A. I. Root Company. Medina City Schools’ mascot is the Bees; this Acme has the school district’s merch, too.
The Medina Acme’s inventory also includes Acme-branded products, such as coffee, and its private-label brands: Simply Done, Food Club and Crav’n.
The store is also equipped with the “Moo Cow” over the dairy case and a “Cheerio” horse ride — both of which have become staples in Acme’s Akron-Canton stores.
The Moo Cow is present in each of Acme’s 17 stores, Swartz said.
“Not every store has a Cheerio,” she said. “We’re working on it.”
An old-fashioned, British-style red phone booth signals the location of the tea aisle. Albrecht called it “my prototype, our first one.” Kids and adults alike can take enjoyment in it, he added.
Medina Acme store continues family-owned business’s local legacy
F.W. Albrecht founded Acme in 1891, and the Albrecht family has retained ownership for the past 134 years.
The Medina store — south of the city’s uptown — is Acme’s first new location since it expanded to Green in 2014.
The grocer had a store in uptown Medina in the early 20th century, Joe Albrecht, president of Albrecht Inc., the site developer and property owner, and Swartz’s and Nick Albrecht’s brother, previously said.
Since the 2016 closure of Geyer Hawkins Market at 233 Lafayette Road in Medina, which is now a Habitat for Humanity ReStore, grocery options were reduced in the southern part of the city, Medina Mayor Dennis Hanwell previously said.
Among Medina residents, Hanwell said a common refrain became, “When’s the Acme coming?”
In May, a Meijer opened at 1105 N. Court St. in the city, north of Medina Public Square. ALDI and Walmart also operate locations north of the square. And Buehler’s Fresh Foods and ALDI have locations to the east in Montville Township.
Of those stores, Buehler’s is the only one based in Ohio, with headquarters in Wooster.
Albrecht said his family has a strong connection to Northeast Ohio.
“It’s where we live, work and raise our families. And I think that’s a local touch that you see in our stores with the Moo Cow, or we work in our stores during the holidays,” he said. “We know the customers because they might live on the same street as us or they were our first grade teachers. And they say they want to have this item, ‘Can you get it for us?’ And we get it for them. And I think that’s a competitive difference that we stand by and we’re good at.”
Overall, Swartz said, “We’re all extremely focused on providing value, low prices, high quality — that’s what Acme Fresh Market is all about.”
Craig Webb, trends and weather reporter for the Akron Beacon Journal, contributed to this report.
Patrick Williams covers growth and development for the Akron Beacon Journal. He can be reached by email at pwilliams@gannett.com or on X @pwilliamsOH. Sign up for the Beacon Journal’s business and consumer newsletter, “What’s The Deal?”
This article originally appeared on Akron Beacon Journal: Acme Medina opens Thursday with familiar items, experiences — and some new ones
Reporting by Patrick Williams, Akron Beacon Journal / Akron Beacon Journal
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