Grocery changes hands

by Jacob Wheeler
Sun staff writer

Its difficult to tell that an era has ended at Glen Arbor’s grocery store on Western Avenue. The naked wood exterior and giant white pine slab used as a counter top for the cash register suggest age and tradition, even though the store’s ownership changed hands over the winter.
After running the grocery for 70 years, notoriously under the care of Gill Warnes and most recently Greg and Deb Warnes, the family sold it to Matt Davis and Bob Ewing, business partners and good friends who also hold Boone Docks restaurant in their stocked deck of cards.
But Davis and Ewing have no interest in expanding their new business or glossing it over with a distinctly modern look.
“Our idea of up north is a rustic return to the Glen Arbor our visitors remember,” said Davis, whose grandparents owned a grocery store in Morris, Mich. We don’t see it as fancy condominiums and $10 million houses. That’s why this had to look like a store that had been here for awhile.”
The general perception is that continuity is a comfort to many locals who have lived in the area for generations. Some will walk by the Davis’ and Ewing’s store this summer and refer to it still as Warnes’ Grocery. And when they walk inside, they’ll find reminders of the family which served them for the better part of a century. The new owners hope to display pictures of the Warnes family on the walls.
“A lot of pride and hard work has gone into this store,” said Davis, who also sells real estate out of his office on the deck of Boone Docks. “Gill always said that ‘he built the store to feed his family.’”
Even after the Warnes family handed the store on, it took pride in serving Glen Arbor. Davis fondly remembers Greg scrubbing the floors at midnight, just a few days before the store was scheduled to open this spring.
As much as the family photos and the former owner still helping out resemble continuity, the giant giant wooden counter top sums up the new owners’ rustic, up north vision.
On a trip to Boyne City to pick up a half-log for the side of the building, Davis and Ewing were distracted by giant slabs of wood sitting on the floor of the sawmill.
“We looked at each other and realized it at the same moment,” said Davis. “Those slabs would make great counter tops.”
To their dismay Davis and Ewing tried to buy the slabs but learned they weren’t for sale. So they decided to go local, contracting Bill Peyton, a regular customer at Boone Docks, to do the logwork and facilitate remodeling the grocery’s exterior, which now resembles that of a log cabin.
Peyton’s company, Log Works, added a porch, remodeled the front of the store and worked on the roof, but the structure is pretty much the same as it was during the Warnes era.
Now both groceries in town have changed owners in the past four years. One, Anderson’s Market, has expanded greatly, and the other has stayed retained continuity.
According to Davis, the Glen Arbor Grocery won’t have any problem co-existing with Anderson’s, as the two enterprises have satisfied Glen Arbors summer tourist boom together for decades.