May 2009

C-Store at Homestead Village

“The Quik Market opened in early March,” says Keith Wilson, general manager for Cura Hospitality at the community. “Basically what happened was we had this area with a sink that had kind of become a junk collection area. I decided that we could better utilize that space by giving residents a place where they could come and get things like hot soup, milk, juice, eggs, produce and bakery items.”

The store is less concerned with dry goods since the campus already had an auxiliary c-store. So Wilson stayed away from things the other store sold with the exception of perishables. “It was hard for [the auxiliary c-store] to offer things like a quart of milk or eggs because they wouldn’t sell it fast enough,” Wilson says. “The good thing about the Quik Market is because it’s perishable stuff we can rotate it in and out. If it doesn’t get used, we use it in the dining room.” The Quik Market also offers grab-and-go versions of the dining room’s entrées, packaged for reheating.

“The entrées are the same from the dining hall,” Wilson says. “The idea behind that was these people start getting busy and if they want to have the meal of the day, they can come and get it, put it in a to-go container, go about their business and then go home and eat. This way we are quick chilling and getting it ready to go so they don’t have to worry about any foodborne illnesses or anything like that.”

Wilson says he sees c-stores as the next step in the community’s growth. In the next five years, Wilson expects the number of independent living residents to grow from 325 to 600. “My intent was not to go and make a lot of money,” Wilson says. “It was really just to use that space and give residents something they could use.”