Celebrating a New Era with Capri IGA’s Grand Re-opening

When he was just 15 and a half years old, Tyler Morse took his first job bagging groceries at a locally owned independent store. He recalls that everybody who worked there was very close, and that it truly felt like family. It was such a tight knit group, in fact, that several years later, Morse is still friends with many of those same people.

While he worked his way up through the store and eventually moved to the wholesale side of the business, it was this connection with his coworkers, along with the interaction with customers, that Morse missed most.

Deep Community Ties

Three years ago, Morse and his family moved about an hour east of St. Louis, just south of Greenville, Illinois. With a population of about 7,000, Greenville and nearby Hillsboro, a town of 5,000, are tight knit, church-oriented communities. Although both are growing, they pride themselves on maintaining their traditional small-town feel.

Capri IGA has been a core component of each community since the 1960s. As the only grocery store in both towns, Capri provided crucial food and jobs to the region. Each store reflected the intimate hometown feel by eschewing self-checkouts and offering warm, personalized service.

When the former owner was ready to retire, Morse jumped at the chance to buy them. He envisioned stores that would reflect the same family feel that he loved so much at his first job, while also incorporating all of the knowledge he gained through his years in wholesale.

To Morse, joining the Independent Grocers Alliance (IGA) was a great way to maintain tradition and benefit from the name recognition of the IGA brand.

"The IGA name is very important in small communities,” he said.

As a new store, he looks forward to taking advantage of the programs and resources offered by the Alliance and incorporating available training.

Subtle but Impactful Changes

Since officially taking possession of both stores on November 9^th, 2023, it has been an absolute whirlwind of activity. With the holidays just weeks away, Morse had no option but to hit the ground running.

And even though he was entering one of the busiest times of the year, Morse and his team started on a series of subtle but impactful changes.

With some serious elbow grease, they cleaned up the stores and organized the shelves to reduce clutter. In the Hillsboro store, they removed dense shelving that had been covering a row of windows in the front of the store. Morse also added neon signs to the liquor departments of both stores to brighten up what had been dark corners. The result of all of this hard work is cleaner, more inviting, airier stores. And, perhaps not coincidentally, an increase in liquor sales.

While it was important for Morse to maintain the small-town appeal of the original stores (you still won’t see self-checkouts!), he also started incorporating technology where appropriate. Starting with a bigger social media presence, Capri has also recently rolled out their very own app.

Community and Employee Appreciation

Like many small towns, Greenville and Hillsboro are a bit adverse to change, so Morse took immediate steps to win over the community. He started with simple things like making a point of acknowledging all customers. But he also undertook big initiatives, like lowering prices where possible.

Likewise, when Morse took over, he realized there was a bit of an employee morale problem he had to deal with. He started by simply getting to know all of his employees. But he also took actionable steps like prioritizing a remodel of the dated break rooms over other planned projects and starting a new 401K program instead of a union pension plan, which had never been done before in the state of Illinois.

“When you are invested in employee’s lives and legitimately care about them, they do a better job for you,” Morse explained.

Today, Morse happily reports that morale is much improved and his staff and “top notch” management, including his in-house accounting manager who has been there for more than 20 years, have been a huge portion of his success.

Time to Celebrate

After putting in so much hard work, it was time to show it off to the community. In January, Morse started planning for grand re-opening celebrations at both stores. He invited the community through radio ads, Facebook posts, and good old fashioned word of mouth.

Held back-to-back on March 8^th and 9^th, each grand re-opening was an opportunity to highlight the changes that were made to the stores while showing the community a great time.

Festivities kicked off at 10 :00 a.m. with a ribbon cutting and continued with fun activities like live radio broadcasts, bands, and special appearances from the famed Oscar Meyer Weinermobile and a Prairie Farms milk truck that is believed to be the oldest operating milk truck in the country.

In addition to great entertainment, guests were treated to some seriously amazing deals and prizes. In partnership with distributor UNFI, the first 50 visitors to each store were given a bag of Essential Everyday brand products. Throughout the day, there were a series of raffles, with prizes like TVs, an iPad, golf bags, and patio umbrellas. Weekend-long deals included Kretschmar hard salami for $3.99 per pound, Reser’s one-pound assorted salads for $1, three-pound bags of Tenderbird chicken for $10, and two 24 oz. bags of Greater American breaded butterfly shrimp for $8. Of course, with the Weinermobile there, they had to run a special on hot dogs, offering two packs for $3.

The opening was a great success. Morse said there were no parking spots available throughout the day and he guesses that there must have been more than 1,000 attendees at each celebration.

What’s Next?

With so much work behind him, and the opening ribbons officially cut, Morse is trying to now take it one day at a time and focus on incremental improvements. Looking forward a year from now, he is excited to have a little bit more down time to spend with his wife and three daughters.