Known for their farm fresh produce, meats, coffee, beer and wine selection, fast deli service, homemade soups and salads, gift baskets, and more, Loeb’s has been “relieving stress and meeting needs” as the store in the center of town for many years.
It could be said that Loeb’s Foodtown is in the heart of Lenox and is the heart of Lenox. Like the town of Fallon, Nevada, a crossroads oasis whose goal after the Homestead Act was to “provide the finest in services to its residents,” owners Bernie and Isabel Fallon want their crossover store to provide the best services it can to their Lenox community. In an increasingly homogenous and globalized world, the modest mom-and-pop business finds its competitive edge in kindness.
The Fallons have owned the grocery and deli since 2019, but the store’s roots go back to 1959, when (according to a current customer who was a young girl at the time) Marion and Leo Loeb tore down a beautiful Victorian house (The Corner House Inn) and built what seemed like a “monstrosity” at the time. They ran the store from 1959 to 1968. Earl Albert, originally a meat cutter, agreed to work at Loeb’s during a Finast Supermarkets strike (when truck drivers and warehouse workers walked off the job, threatening to halt shipments to Connecticut, New York, and Massachusetts). In return, he asked for the right of first refusal when the Loebs decided to sell. A year later his wish came true, and they turned the whole operation over to Albert, who was only 27 at the time. He and his wife Lesley mortgaged everything to buy the business but couldn’t afford to change the store name, so it continued to be known as Loeb’s.
The Alberts were known for their personal attention, local delivery, and down-home touch. They hired neighborhood youth (often for their first job), training as many as 400 employees over the years (a tradition that continues today). “Earl’s philosophy was the same as ours—customer service before everything else,” says Fallon. “This was the big store back then,” he continues. “They had all the modern amenities, like walk-in coolers and freezers and even a conveyor belt to bring things up from the storage room.”
Bernie Fallon is a veteran of the food industry. His family history with grocery stores goes back to the Public Market on Main Street in West Stockbridge, where his grandfather Francis Fallon had a store front and meat truck from the 1930s to 1965. His grandfather sold the market to Roland Mintz, who later bought the Sheffield Market. However, running two stores proved to be too much for Rollie (as he was known), so he sold the West Stockbridge market to his butcher, Jake Gerdin, in 1966. Gerdin sold it to a couple from California in 1977, who eventually (call it Fate?) sold it back to Ann and Michael Skorput (Bernie’s mom and stepfather) in 1978.
“I helped my stepfather at the market starting in my teens,” Fallon notes. “When sides of beef were coming in, he’d tell me to start cutting. I learned how to cut beef, pork, chicken, and lamb—invaluable skills in our business, since that’s where the profit comes.” His stepfather also taught him how to adapt and change—serving coffee to go, sandwiches, and hot lunches to reflect the needs of the community. Bernie ran the store from 2003 to 2010, when he moved to Phoenix.
Throughout all the family history with grocery stores, Fallon learned about the key ingredients for running a successful market—good coffee, great sandwiches, and fresh produce. He also learned about creating the right environment through cleanliness, organization, alignment, comfort, and ambience/music. “You should come in and immediately feel the ‘ah,’” he smiles.
Beyond growing up in the grocery business, Bernie had been preparing mentally and emotionally for building community through great customer service for a long time. In 2011 he published a book, “Goodology,” that describes his process of personal development through seeing and doing good. He credits his parents for their inspiration—his mom for her “infinite intelligence, ability to see beauty in all things, bright smile and positive outlook,” and his dad for “having a good heart and always being interested in helping those in need.” His preface begins, “For as long as I can remember, I have wanted to do good.” That desire took him on a different path from the typical graduate plotting out life goals after college. “Although I loved the work in certain career options, it was not the grand vision. I really didn’t see careers for myself; I saw people. I saw need, emotion, and hope. I wanted people to have everything they wanted in their lives.”
This led him to ask “How could I help? How could I be of service? How could I make people’s lives better?” His life, relationships, and business have all been a conscious effort to find and share the answers to those questions, to tap into the “endless reservoir of love, creativity, compassion and intelligence” by being energized by beauty and goodness. It is a work ethic, a business standard, a life principle.
Bernie met his wife Isabel (the other indispensable part of the Loeb’s team) at a class while he was living in Phoenix. “I was volunteering at homeless shelters, working with an organization called Phoenix Philanthropists, and working at a school for homeless children—doing something almost each night. Isabel and her daughter often joined me, and we bonded over those shared interests,” he explains. Soon after he was invited to manage the NYC metro territory for Chobani and moved back east. He still had his home in Massachusetts and drove up a lot of weekends. He began to think giving his energy to a local store that he respected would be nice. He found what he was looking for at Guido’s Fresh Marketplace. “I was immediately impressed by everything they did and the way they did it,” he recalls, “and began to wonder what would have happened if I had kept going in the grocery business.”
About that time (2018) the Alberts, who had been running the store for 51 years, decided it was time to sell. When Bernie learned about it, he decided to pursue it. “Earl had known my stepfather and me for years—all of my life, in fact,” Fallon notes, which made the transfer of ownership more appealing to both sides. He and Isabel closed on May 29, 2019.
What does it take to be good at your business so you can do good for your community? The primary goal for Fallon is caring for customers by relieving stress and meeting needs. Not only the out-of-towners who pop in for their Tanglewood picnics but also the plumbers, builders, and electricians looking for a hefty deli sandwich on a slim lunch break. “When someone comes to your house, you want everything to be right. We want the same experience for everyone who comes to our store,” he says.
“I realized quickly on that it’s about understanding demographics, knowing the neighborhood, providing what people want by getting their input, and using your own intuition,” he continues. “We added probably 5,000 natural, organic products to the items previously sold at Loeb’s, continued Earl’s outstanding roast beef recipe, extended the hours, and worked harder to serve people quickly and efficiently early on.” Beyond that, he explains, it’s about general knowledge of the industry trends, good relationships with the companies that supply and deliver to you, researching various distributors’ top sellers, surveying customers (in store and online), listening to people and learning their needs, and (most importantly) developing personal relationships to bring customers back again and again.
How has business been for the mom and pop shop competing in a world of big box chains? To answer that, Fallon references two things that have kept their store alive: the local community and the pandemic. The Fallons took over Loeb’s nine months before COVID hit. On the heels of their first blockbuster summer (Lenox being home to many of the Berkshires “meccas”), they felt lucky to keep growing over the winter. Then, suddenly, in March 2019, sales shot way up. “We ordered from anyone who had it on hand,” he says. Isabel’s daughter helped out with curbside pickup and deliveries. “We were constantly adapting and reacting,” he explains, “but the demands inspired us rather than making us burned out. And the pandemic deepened our connections with the local community.”
Throughout the pandemic, Bernie’s mother Anna (who worked at the store) continued to inspire him to do good, just as she always did. “To watch her customer service skills was amazing,” he says. “Every person had value. She knew how to make everyone’s day better with her positive energy. Her favorite response was, ‘I love it!’” Isabel shares his deep admiration for Anna’s kind, welcoming way with all of her customers and employees. “I learned a lot from her example,” she acknowledges. Anna died last year—a loss that is still very raw as they talk about her—but her presence is carried on in the close daily connections they have with the community. That is the legacy they strive to carry on. “Our customer service manual is made up of all the things my mother did naturally,” he explains. Things like using customers’ names, listening, treating people with respect, and showing appreciation.
Isabel Fallon credits two additional people for inspiring her as a store owner. The first is her mother, who raised 11 children in Honduras on a shoestring but always was willing to give to someone who needed it more. “She would have one chicken for all of us and give half of it away. When we would ask why, she’d always say, ‘God provides.’ And somehow, we would always have leftovers!” And the second is Bernie. Although she admits she didn’t want to date anyone when he first starting contacting her, that quickly changed when she realized how different he was. “He was so simple and kind and grateful,” she explains.
Fallon’s own experiences over the years have also helped him develop good instincts about how to manage a store. Things like remodeling/redesigning the front of the store to make it more appealing and efficient. Changing things a little at a time to avoid confusing customers, but also to keep them excited and curious for their next visit. Collaborating with other stores (for example, placing orders with Guido’s) to get better pricing, which can then be passed on to consumers. Making sandwiches memorable and affordable and preparing them quickly, which increases deli sales and helps fund other aspects of the business. Cooking the meat after two days and making it the special sandwich the next day to avoid wasting anything. Offering a bulk area (for chocolates and nuts) and gift baskets (made by Isabel). Always improving.
“Positive word-of-mouth referrals are so important,” he says, adding that in the four years they’ve been in operation, they’ve more than doubled what the store was previously earning—without advertising (other than emailing customers and posting on social media). “You’re the talk of the town,” one customer congratulated. “The store has always been important to the community, but it’s now become a destination,” Fallon smiles.
How do they find good help when every store in the Berkshires is struggling to fill positions? “We have a little network of referrals,” Fallon confides, naming specific employees and the friends they have referred. “Young people really like working here—they know we appreciate them and enjoy mentoring them.” Like Luke, a former employee on his way to becoming a Navy Seal, who told Bernie, “I learned by watching you.” Maddy, who has referred many of her friends. Brendan, who took a gap year before college to earn money and learn valuable business skills at Loeb’s. And Mitch, who [at 14] created their “click and order” online platform, enabling them to provide fast, efficient deli service at an affordable price. Most importantly, the Fallons view themselves as coworkers (not bosses) and their employees as family.
“If there is a nomination for Business Woman of the Year, Isabel Fallon has to be in the running. Do you agree?” Fallon recently posted on their Facebook page. “She has carried this business on her shoulders. She does the bookkeeping, runs the cash register (all day), programs the POS, designs layouts in the store, deals with sales people/deliveries, manages employees and more,” he raves, adding “she works as hard as I do and doesn’t burn out.” At last count they were both putting in 13+ hours a day, and still, he admits “The last thing we say to each other at night is often something about the store.” As Isabel puts it, “This business is our baby. We love our work and want to be here for the store, just like we would for a baby. It brings us joy watching it grow.”
Isabel has always been a hard worker. “I always worked two jobs growing up,” she notes. She worked in a chiropractor’s office for eight years when she moved to Phoenix in 1989. When the owner decided to switch gears and start a pharmaceutical company in 1999, she quickly learned how to run a business. “There were two employees when we started, and now they have 120. I was in charge of purchasing, managing employees, scheduling—anything and everything that needed to get done.”
A quick scan of photos on their Facebook page confirms Bernie’s claims. She honestly does it all (nothing is beneath her), and always with a smile. “I really love it—our customers, how they experience us, our employees,” she says. “We get the whole mix here… people who live here, people who visit, and especially people who work here. We get a lot of contractors, and we know how important it is for them to be able to buy what they need and get back out without any wait.”
Loeb’s ranked in the top three in several categories in the 2022 Rural Intelligence Awards, including runner-up for Best Sandwich and for Grocery. “They cover four counties, and that was without even knowing we were being considered or promoting ourselves in any way,” Fallon points out, adding “The people are always your best army.”
Do they plan to expand or franchise anytime soon? “You have to profit to reinvest, but you have to reinvest to be the best for your customers,” he opines. And so, profits go back into the store for a new parking lot, new sound system, new freezers, new coolers, new checkout counters… “For now, we’re happy doing what we’re doing,” he says. “We haven’t had a day off in four years, but it’s never work.” It wasn’t work for his grandfather or his mother and stepfather, and it isn’t for Bernie and Isabel. “We love what we do,” they both agree.
“All of us have goodness, all of us have energy, if you give people a chance,” Fallon says, reflecting on what they’ve built. To illustrate, he shares a story about a man who recently came in looking for work after being down on his luck. Another store owner might have apologized and sent him away, as the staff was full, but Bernie and Isabel hired him to do odd jobs, like fixing leaks and gutters. He turned out to be a master painter and carpenter who built them stunning new display cases and checkout islands.
Which brings us back to “Goodology,” where we started. “By focusing on the good we can increase our inner power and help create a kinder, gentler, more peaceful world,” Fallon maintains. One person and one shopping experience at a time.
