market change. John Loesch stands outside the 6th Avenue Neighborhood Market where he has worked for 28 years. At the end of this month, Loesch will retire and transfer the small grocery store to a new owner. (Photo by clare jensen)
The last thing Tacoma needs is another convenience store.
At least that’s long-time grocer John Loesch’s philosophy.
Twenty-eight years ago, the German American began running the 100-year-old Neighborhood Market at Sixth and Junett. Twenty-three years ago, he bought the building and has kept his passion for providing produce, dairy, meats, grains and other staples to all his neighbors he has come to know, and love.
Today, the 66-year old workingman has decided to call it quits.
Well, sort of.
Loesch will keep ownership of the building, which he recently remodeled and added an additional retail space to. At the end of this month, a new grocer will be running the market, but Loesch said the store, and it’s neighborhood appeal, will stay virtually unchanged.
“After all those years it gets kind of stale. It will be nice to have someone new come in with new ideas, but we’re trying to keep it as close as we can to what it is,” he said.
Loesch said he has been working closely with the new owner, Youn Park, for the past month, and will continue to do so for a couple of weeks after the switch.
A 3,700 square-foot retail space Loesch created this summer at the back of the market is still up for lease. He says the space would be suitable for a number of things, but has his fingers crossed for an investor with a taste for sports bars to move in.
“We have a lot of bars, but few of them have sports, cheap food and beer that’s reasonable,” he said. “We have enough expensive restaurants on Sixth Avenue. We need something that a younger generation can come in and enjoy themselves.”
As for the market, Loesch said he is glad he finally found a businessman who shares his vision of maintaining a marketplace. He noted some other potential lessees were interested in turning his Sixth Avenue landmark into a quickie-mart, so to speak.
“We have a lot of people who walk on the Ave. - a lot of elderly people who walk. There’s a real need for a small grocery around here, and we want to maintain that.”
And as owner of the marketplace for nearly 30 years, Loesch has spent just about every day in the store, working directly with the customers he serves. He is going to miss that, he said, but he is looking forward to taking some “real time off.”
“I’ll miss my customers,” he said. “I just kind of need to get out. There’s a certain time you will need to get out.
“I think I’m going to enjoy my retirement - going to go bike riding in California and Spain. I just hope that I don’t have to come back here,” Loesch chuckled.
6th Avenue Neighborhood Market, 3002 6th Ave., (253) 627-3344.
