![]() “He wasn’t just my dad and partner he was my mentor,” said Harroz, who started working in the store at age 8, sweeping the concrete floor. When he moved to the Reno location in the Ridgecrest Shopping Center, his father shortened the store name to Crest because “he didn’t want customers to have to write out a long name on their checks. served in the Army Air Corps during World War II, and in 1946 opened his first grocery - Nick’s Brett Drive Grocery - in a housing addition north of Tinker.įive years later, he moved to NE 29 Street to a store he ultimately named Nick’s Thrifty Wise, Bruce Harroz said. who at age 15 immigrated alone from Lebanon - opened Fairview Grocery at SW 29 and Agnew. ![]() The family moved from Wichita Falls to Oklahoma City in 1929 when Nick’s father, Nicholas Harroz Sr. Bruce said his dad grew up as one of nine siblings, and Nick and one sister lived two years in an orphanage because their parents couldn’t afford to care for them all. “I wasn’t having a very good day myself, she said, so I snapped, ‘I didn’t throw her damn peaches! He was quiet for a minute, then said, ‘OK, I’ll take care of her.’”Īfter speaking Monday with Harroz’s son Bruce, who bought the store from his dad in 1999, I understand why Nick could be cantankerous. “About 10 minutes after she checked out, the phone at my check stand rang - it was Nick, telling me a lady had called to complain,” Broadway said. “Nick’s nose was broken and I believe an earlobe of one of the boys was bitten off,” he said.Ĭlassmate Liz Parks Broadway, who worked as a cashier in the summer of ’78, remembered a time when a customer complained the store bruised her peaches. “The matter was taken out to the parking lot, where the scuffle ensued,” Griffis said. Griffis witnessed Nick and his sons confront a customer about writing hot checks. Harroz, who Wheeler said always kept a long, unlit cigar in his mouth, treated his customers with kindness and respect, “but when needed, he would stand his ground,” he said.Ĭlassmate Warren Griffis, who worked in Crest for a merchandizing company in the early ’80s, can attest to that. I’ll always remember the first time I messed up on the way I was sacking and Nick yelling from up in the platform office for something I deserved, like putting eggs or bread on the bottom,” he said. Jon Wheeler, a former ’75-’76 sacker, said of Harroz, “You respected him, but also feared and, sometimes, couldn’t stand him. ![]() “On Wednesdays, he would get the sale papers from groceries within 50 miles,” Rummell said, “and meet or beat the ad by a penny.” My classmate Becky Morgan-Breen, who worked some 10 years for Harroz, said one of Nick’s favorite sayings was “If you watch your pennies, your dollars will fall in place.”īomber Robert Rummell, who graduated a few years ahead of me and cut meat there for seven years, remembers Harroz gave only 5-cent raises, two or three times a year. He laid down a $100 bill, which Harroz cashed for the penny owed. Years earlier, in elementary school, I had learned a hard lesson there involving penny bubble gum.īased on comments I’ve heard from my classmates, from Nick’s son Bruce and others on Facebook, pennies very well might lie at the core of Nick Harroz’s legacy.Ī friend of my parents liked to tell the story of his being one cent short on a grocery bill. ![]() My twin sister and I donned white shirts and bow ties to work as “sack boys” in the original store one Saturday in the spring of 1976 and wrote about it for a women’s lib piece in the Midwest City High School’s “Bomber Beam” newspaper. Following Nick’s motto of “Stack it high and sell it cheap,” the discount grocery - which is open round-the-clock, including major holidays - later grew to eight metro stores. He was 93.ĭuring my childhood, my mother regularly shopped (still does) at Crest, which opened in 1964 on Reno Avenue in Midwest City. Nick Harroz Jr., the founder of Crest Foods, died March 12. Oklahoma lost a shrewd businessman last week and an icon of my hometown of Midwest City. ![]()
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