Here is a question that sounds simple and is not.
If a business works, should it grow?
Every instinct in American commerce says yes. Growth is the point. A company that stops expanding is treated as a company that failed at something, and the language we use gives it away. Stagnant. Stuck. Left behind.
So when a grocery chain builds an excellent business in one metro area and then simply stays there for generations, it reads as a lack of ambition.
It is the opposite. It is a decision made repeatedly, with the family's own money, against constant pressure.
And the arithmetic behind it is considerably better than the arithmetic behind most expansions, which is why there are still regional grocers and why so many ambitious ones are gone.
Let me show you the numbers nobody puts in the press release.