Stew Leonard's adds to its next generation of leadership. Here's the newest family member in charge

Andrew Hollis has joined the next generation of management at family-owned grocer Stew Leonard's.

The 34-year-old was recently name vice president of the chain's Danbury store. It seemed almost predestined that he would be involved in the family business and at that location: Hollis was born the same day that the chain opened its permanent location on Federal Road in Danbury in August 1991. 

"My mother told my father he needed go to the store opening," Hollis said of his mother Beth, who was in labor with Andrew when she ordered her husband off to work. She is the sister of the chain's current chief executive officer, Stew Leonard\, Jr.

The Fairfield resident had previously worked for the chain in its Yonkers,  N.Y. store, first as the store's manager of its grocery department, then as director of sales in the same store.

"I've always loved grocery, the brand side of it," Hollis said. "Food is just so exciting. There's always something going on, something changing, there's always a trend happening. I just became super passionate about it."

The chain has a total of eight grocery stores across three states, including Connecticut locations in Danbury, Newington and Norwalk. Hollis said the chain's niche is its focus on producing fresh items in house.

"All the items we make here, a lot of retailers don't want to do that." he said. "They are trying to eliminate as much labor as possible to make their store less labor intensive. We're going to continue to invest in our people and labor so that we can continue to make these great products fresh in house, which is something I'm really proud of because that is what separates is from the competition."

He is one of six grandchildren of the chain's founder, the late Stew Leonard Sr., to get involved in the family business.

"I always knew I'd be coming back to the family business at some point," he said after graduating from Gettysburg College with bachelor's degree in sociology. 

But part of the requirement of joining the third generation of the Leonard family business is spending time working outside of the company.  Hollis went to work for another family owned company, Polar Beverages in Worcester, Mass. He worked there for five years.

"Working for somebody else gets your brain thinking differently," Hollis said. "I got a lot of experience on the sales side selling the brand to other retailers."

His uncle, Stew Leonard Jr., announced late last year that his daughter Blake and nephew Jake Tavello will begin leading the company when he turns 75 in four years.

The decision to make Blake president of the company and appoint Jake as chief executive officer came after an outside consulting firm assessed the strengths of each family member who works for the Norwalk-based grocery chain. Given the grocery chain's success, the next generation of Leonard family leadership could be faced with a moment where decision making becomes difficult out of fear that their decisions will undue all of the achievements of the previous generation.

Hollis doesn't see it that way.

"Our family has done a real good job of including us in everything," Hollis said. "We'd do these big annual meetings ever since we were little. We're going to have more responsibility, but we know what to do. We understand the business so well, because they have included us in everything, that we feel really good that we will keep this going for generations and generations."

Stew Leonard Jr. has run the company since 1991 when he took over from his father and has built the business into what has long been known as the "Disneyland of Grocery Stores," because of its use of animatronic characters.  The chain has over 130 mechanically animated characters across its eight stores in Connecticut, New York and New Jersey and has two full time employees whose only job is come up with new animatronic characters and oversee the existing ones.

The chain also operates eight wine and spirits stores across the three states.

Overseeing the operations of the Danbury store to some extent isn't that much different than running other stores in the chain. The Yonkers store that he came from has nearly 500 workers, compared to the 331 people who work in Danbury, but Hollis said there are some differences.

"We used to sell a ton of pastrami at the Yonkers store because it's in New York, but I wouldn't do that here," Hollis said.  The Danbury store includes items in its merchandise mix to appeal to the city's significant population of immigrants from Brazil.

Hollis said his uncle's personality, which is regularly on display in the chain's radio and television commercials, "plays a a huge role" in the chain's continued success.

"He's a staple, an amazing personality and we're all learning a lot from him every single day," Hollis said. "He's coaching and teaching us on how to create a lot of excitement. We're learning and we're going to have to create our own way, to put our own spin on it."

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