Jackson County Times

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Monday, September 14, 2009

Doing Good in Bad Times

By Sid Riley
McCoy’s Food Mart in Marianna is expanding. From the time they open at 5:00 A.M, until they close at 8:00 P.M., the store if full of hustle and bustle as customers crowd their way to the line at the cash register, waiting patiently to check out. Retail sales may be in a recessionary downturn nationwide, but you would never know it if you judged sales by what is going on at McCoy’s.
The reason for their success is not location. They are located across the tracks going south on the Clarksville Highway, away from the continual lumbering traffic that fills Highway 90 in Marianna. Their lot is crowded, and their gas pumps are difficult to pull up to. Inside, their store is crowded with merchandise almost filling the walkways, barely allowing room for customers to pass.
McCoy’s is not a common store, and it certainly is not your common mini-market. One of the numerous reasons for their popularity is the fact that they usually have the lowest gas prices in town, but that is far from the only reason people flock to this store.
Perhaps the reason for their success is the diversity of markets which the store serves. Along with the normal mini-market fare of high turnover items inside and gas pumps outside, the store also is a hunting-fishing outfitters store, a farm feed supply store, a bait store, one of the few places left in the county where you can purchase oysters by the bag (washed and iced if you wish), and has now become one of the best equipped bow hunting outfitter stores in the panhandle.
This bow hunting paradise store was the scene of a McCoy’s style “Grand Opening” ceremony last Thursday. Beauty queens, welcoming speeches by the Chamber of Commerce, and the cutting of a yellow ribbon were not on the agenda for Tim McCoy and his wife Suzette. Since Tim is himself an avid hunter, they invited Travis “T-Bone” Turner, one of the world’s best bow hunters to come to the event and autograph photographs for avid young hunters. “T-Bone” is a frequent hunter on the TV series, “Monster Bucks” and “Bone Collector Show” on the Outdoor Channel, and is a past ASA 3D World Champion. Following this theme, McCoy presold over 600 giant, 1 ¼ inch thick, beautiful, succulent, grilled T-Bone steaks which were cooked and served on the store lot for the crowd which came to the grand opening. Tim McCoy estimated that between 1200 and 1500 people came to the day long event.
So we say “Congratulations” to McCoy’s Food Mart for having the wisdom to create the right combination at their store to enable them to always be “Doing Good In Bad Times.”

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