Category: Local Businesses, News || By

It's no baloney --- one of the city's best-known businesses is adding a new location.

Rich and Jan Kugler, owners of Lampert's Market on Grandview Avenue, have purchased the former Renzie Mini Mart on Eden Park Boulevard near Penn State Greater Allegheny and will reopen it as a convenience store and deli.

The new store is expected to open early in 2009. Terms of the sale were not disclosed.

Catering to customers from the city's southern neighborhoods, White Oak, Versailles and surrounding communities, the store will keep later hours than the Grandview location, provide off-street parking, and offer a variety of "meals on the go."

"I want to do hot foods, deli items, pizza and hoagies," says Rich Kugler, 52, a graduate of McKeesport Senior High School and the University of Pittsburgh and a butcher for 30 years. "Casseroles, lasagna, stuffed chicken breast --- we can do all that, no problem, and we'll probably offer a couple of soups a day."

However, a big attraction is likely to be Lampert's renowned selection of ethnic, prepared meats --- like kolbassi, hot sausage, sweet sausage, hurka and Hungarian "slab bacon" --- and its salads.

Customers who want a taste of the old country "literally come in from everywhere, and it goes everywhere," Kugler says. On Thursday, for instance, Lampert's overnighted a shipment of kolbassi to a customer in North Carolina.

"I don't like to do it, and I tell people 'You don't want to do it,' because it's so expensive," Kugler says. "But they want it anyway. I've got one guy who's originally from McKeesport, who's now a car dealer in Wyoming. Whenever he's having a party, he calls and says 'I want 20 pounds of kolbassi --- you can charge it to my UPS account.' They come and pick it up, and he doesn't care how much it costs."

Kugler employs another full-time meat cutter, Scott Zweibel, a Lampert's employee for 17 years. He admits he couldn't survive on business from the city alone; regular customers who want freshly butchered, prime meats drive to Lampert's from Homestead, Munhall, West Elizabeth and West Mifflin.

All butchering at Lampert's is "done on demand," Kugler says. "A guy called yesterday from Elizabeth --- Jan took the call --- he said he wanted five pounds of ground chuck, and he was on his way."

Although Lampert's carries bread, milk, canned goods, pasta and other items, about 90 percent of its sales are in meat, Kugler says.

The market has been in the same location on Grandview, about six blocks south of Versailles Avenue, for at least 80 years. Kugler's parents, Clarence and Betty Kugler, purchased the store in 1982.

The elder Kugler had been a meat department manager for A&P before that chain closed its Pittsburgh area stores, and trained his son in the business. "He taught me well," Rich Kugler says.

Clarence Kugler died in January 2005, and Betty Kugler is now retired.

The Eden Park location will have a limited selection of fresh meat --- "stuff that doesn't need to be cut on-site" --- along with snacks, lottery tickets, cigarettes, and other standard convenience store items.

"We've got a lot of work to do yet," Kugler says. The building is a former Amoco and Exxon gas station, and the fuel tanks still must be removed; the interior also needs to be remodeled.

The Kuglers and the other employees of Lampert's Market also will have to cope with the holiday rush. Hams, roasts and kolbassi from Lampert's are staples on many Mon Valley dinner tables at Christmas and New Year's, and orders will start rolling in by mid-November.

"Easter's big, but nothing's as big as Christmas," Kugler says. "They really go all out."

Lampert's Market is located at 1902 Grandview Ave. Hours are daily 7:30 a.m. to 5:30 p.m., and Saturdays until 4 p.m. Call (412) 664-7371.