While the sale has been finalized and ownership has officially been handed over, operations at Fuller’s Market Place in Centralia will remain the same, owner Harneck “Nick” Dhudwal told The Chronicle this week.
Nick, along with his wife, Ginni Dhudwall, and Fuller’s previous owner, Darris McDaniel met with The Chronicle on Friday, Oct. 4, to talk about what the future holds for the grocery store, which has been a part of the Centralia community for over eight decades.
Fuller’s Market Place, between South Tower Avenue and South Pearl Street, is the last remaining location of a once-thriving local family-owned supermarket chain. There were once three Fuller’s in the Twin Cities area. In 2006, the company announced the closure of its flagship store in Chehalis, which was founded by Bill and Ed Fuller in 1941. Its other location in Fords Prairie closed in 2004.
And while WinCo Foods is constructing a new location a little over a mile away at the Centralia Station development along Interstate 5, Nick said he isn’t worried about the potential new competition. In his mind, if it’s not broken, don’t fix it, he said.
“He’s not going to change the hours. He’s not gonna change the selection. He’s not gonna change the name of the store. He wants to keep everything identical,” McDaniel added. “He’s a smart businessman.”
Though there have been a few employees who have moved on following the announcement of Fuller’s sale last month, the majority of the staff have stayed, Nick said. With the business already well established, he hopes to keep giving customers the same variety and service they’ve always had.
“We carry over 67,000 items, including things that Safeway or Walmart doesn’t have,” Nick said.
Ginni added: “Nick is going to do whatever is needed to keep this place running. We’ve been looking for a good opportunity to give back to the community. He’s actually had his eye on this place. That’s why we bought it, because he loves it.”
Ginni and Nick have been living in the U.S. since immigrating to the country in 1994. They moved to Chehalis in 2001 where they have been ever since. They both thanked the community for the support they’ve already been shown, even before becoming the owners of Fuller’s.
Nick, along with his business partners, now runs 20 businesses throughout the region.
McDaniel thanked Fuller’s customers for shopping there.
“I want to thank all the customers. I’ve gotten a lot of hugs from them over the past couple of weeks saying they’re still going to shop here,” McDaniel said. “This is their store, not ours or his, but this community’s store. It’s been very, very rewarding, but I’m old and it’s time to go.”
Now 81, McDaniel opened his first business in California in 1968. He went on to open more than 30 businesses while he eventually moved his way up to the Pacific Northwest, where he ran the Shop’n Kart grocery store chain, which included Fuller’s after he purchased it.
Fuller’s Market Place is located at 505 S. Tower Ave. in Centralia. The sale from McDaniel to Nick was officially completed on Sept. 24 for $2.5 million, according to the Lewis County Parcels website.
It’s the second property McDaniel has sold this year, as back in July he closed a sale on the now-vacant Yard Birds Shopping Mall property in Chehalis for $2.4 million. McDaniel had initially opened up a new Shop’n Kart location inside Yard Birds in 1990, before buying the entire mall in 1998 with the intention “to turn it into the Yard Birds of old,” as previously reported by The Chronicle.
That intention would be hard to realize as the rise of online shopping over the next decade saw the death of many big box retailers along with retail shopping malls like Yard Birds — a problem that was exacerbated in 2008 with the recession.
In 2017, the Shop’n Kart location inside the mall was closed. Though Fuller’s is no longer a part of the chain, two Shop’n Kart locations are still open in Seaview and Westport.
