Moriah Lane of Carson City shops for fresh produce Wednesday at the new Food Maxx store.
Carson City celebrated the opening of its newest grocery store, FoodMaxx, Wednesday morning.
Despite chilling weather, hundreds gathered to be first in the new store.
“We hoped to get the response we did,” said Stacia Levenfeld, FoodMaxx executive director of Public Relations. “We wanted to have people lined up and excited to get into the store and see what we have.”
FoodMaxx is located at 3325 Highway 50, where the SaveMart previously was. Renovations started in March.
But the corporation and the community welcomed the new store with a ribbon cutting and ceremony Wednesday morning.
“This is our second FoodMaxx in Northern Nevada and we are so excited to be here,” said Levenfeld.
Several community members, including Mayor Bob Crowell, Board of Supervisors member Karen Abowd, Ron Wood Family Resources Center Director Joyce Buckingham and the Empire Elementary fourth and fifth grade choir were all present to usher in the new store.
“Carson City welcomes you, we are going to spend a lot of money here!” Crowell said. “We are terribly proud you are here and we welcome you to the community.”
The company prides itself on warehouse-style shopping with low prices.
“We saw FoodMaxx’s success in California and alongside with SaveMart, we saw a way to serve more of the community,” said Levenfeld.
Customers were excited the new store was in town, with floods of people shopping at the FoodMaxx when doors opened about 9 this morning.
“When this was SaveMart we liked to shop here and I got the flyer for the opening (and decided to come),” said Natalie, one Carson shopper. “It has good prices and that drew us out. I like it better than the SaveMart… it is a very clean store, good prices and all the items we want.”
The store made sure the grand opening was about the community by donating $500 each to Empire Elementary and F.I.S.H. The store even encouraged shoppers to donate to the Ron Wood Family Resource Center and it would match every donation up to $1,500 until Dec. 27. Empire Elementary also is on the store’s list of donation recipients; shoppers can choose to sign up for a program called eScrip which provides a percent of a person’s monetary purchase to charities, non-profits and schools in the community.
“Part of what we do is invest in the community,” said Levenfeld.
The first 200 people in line Wednesday morning for the grand opening also received a free bag of groceries with items such as napkins, vegetable oil and canned goods.
This is the second FoodMaxx in Nevada, the first opened last month in Sparks.