Stop in to one of the eight Mariano's Fresh Markets in the Chicago area and you could spot founder Bob Mariano pushing carts, rewrapping meat or helping clean up spills.
The eponymous, upmarket grocery stores, tended with his exacting sense of detail, have made him something of a local celebrity. But as CEO of Milwaukee-based Roundy's, a nearly $4 billion company, Mariano also oversees about 160 midrange stores in Wisconsin and Minnesota facing all the well-chronicled challenges of the traditional grocery business.
Mariano started behind the deli counter at Dominick's as a high school student in 1968, eventually becoming president of the chain. His decades of work in the Chicago market make him confident in his strategy for Mariano's: He believes his new stores can give shoppers everything they want or need, and at competitive prices.
Key to his model is attracting customers with luxury items and getting them to spend time in the store — perhaps at the wine bar with a plate of cheese and prosciutto — and to notice prices on toilet paper or laundry detergent low enough to save them a trip to Costco.
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