![]() ![]() ![]() So we said we’re going to get out of this and get into hunting, fishing, camping, and reloading.” I reviewed what we did in sales in some of our stores, and, based on sales per square foot, this stuff wasn’t carrying it. “We didn’t sell a lot of that product, but it ate up a lot of sales floor space. “Some of our locations had stuff for the home office and a pretty large assortment of new appliances,” he says. Three Bears was missing out on a huge demographic, and Weisz wanted to attract more male shoppers. It made sense.”Īt the time, Weisz notes, some 75 to 85 percent of Three Bears’ customers were women. “My dad had said, ‘We’re a grocery company.’ Shortly after we bought him out, I got us into sporting goods. “I felt like it would be great for the community and it would be a good fit. That’s been a part of our success: we adapt to the different communities we’re in.”Ĭase in point: the Kenai store, which Weisz was running personally after moving from Tok, seemed to be calling for sporting goods. We always say that when we open a new store, we come in with a basic plan, but we allow our customers to tell us what they’d like to see, and we allow the managers to make those changes. Along the way, we wanted to take care of the customers that we have. “I just looked for ways we could grow the company, things we could do to improve. In 1997, a mini-warehouse store format opened in Kenai. Four years later, Three Bears opened a “super-convenience” store in Seward with a fuel station added later. In 1989, Larry Weisz and two partners opened a grocery called Three Bears in Valdez. ![]() “We realized that the only way that we could get ultra-competitive was to get bigger.” “At that point, you know, as a small operator, it’s pretty tough to make yourself ultra-competitive,” he says. Playing off that classic children’s bedtime story “Goldilocks and the Three Bears,” Three Bears quite literally strove to provide more towns with a business that was “just right” for them, Weisz says. We pretty much just had that store for quite a few years… It wasn’t until the late ‘80s that we actually expanded out with another location.” “We found one photo of the old Gateway Food Store, and it’s just incredible to look at. “I look at some of the old pictures where the company started,” Weisz says. Working at the family business that first winter in Tok, Weisz experienced extreme Interior Alaska cold for the first time. Weisz, the oldest son in the family, had just graduated from high school. We had to learn to cut meat and handle produce and do all the ordering, but it was just part of the growth.” One of the first things we did, we worked on putting in fresh meat and fresh produce. “They didn’t have much of a meat case, and any meat they had was frozen,” he recalls. It so happened a grocery store in Tok was for sale. Larry had a background in the Navy, then worked for the Carrs grocery chain, managing various stores before striking out on his own. Weisz’s father, Larry, founded the company’s first grocery store in the sleepy junction town of Tok in November 1980. “Where the legacy of Three Bears is concerned, I like to say, it’s like the American dream, but it’s the Alaska way,” Weisz says. Avoiding the urban centers in Anchorage, Fairbanks, or Wasilla, the retail chain more commonly targets smaller-town markets where people live an inconvenient distance from city supermarkets. These locations reflect Three Bears’ growth strategy over the years. More plans for the Alaska market are in the chute, with anticipated stores opening in Ketchikan, North Pole, and another Kenai Peninsula location in Cooper Landing. In August 2022, Three Bears opened a store in Sterling on the Kenai Peninsula with a fun and splashy community open house, inviting locals to enjoy free hot dogs and burgers, prize giveaways, and shopping discounts. We will be moving up in the next few years in the range of about 1,200 employees to staff all the new locations we have going on.” “We’re definitely an Alaska company,” says Three Bears’ CEO Dave Weisz. He Three Bears Alaska grocery and retail chain began as an unassuming roadside store and has blossomed over the decades.
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