Cornering the Market

A family-owned supermarket celebrates 100 years.

- JANE MARION

At the height of the coronavirus pandemic, as most Marylanders were following Governor Larry Hogan’s mid-March stay-at-home mandate for all but essential businesses, Dennis Graul, his younger sister, Kate Poffenberger, and their staff of some 200 were stocking shelves, baking cakes, ordering from suppliers, and cheerfully ringing up customers at the Graul’s Markets in Ruxton and May’s Chapel. Similar scenes were playing out across four additional locations of Graul’s owned by fellow family members in Hereford, Annapolis, St. Michaels, and Cape St. Claire. In other words, as most of the state was shut down, at Graul’s, it was just another day at the office. Then again, as the classic supermarket marks a century of business in 2020, this independent merchant has long been an essential part of Maryland. The exact 100th anniversary date is not known, says Dennis, who co-owns the Ruxton location with Kate and is the sole owner of the May’s Chapel store. “No one wrote down the date back then,” he says. “They just went to work and did what they did.”

And today, as the markets celebrate this milestone, that’s still the case. Although there was a time when “blue laws” banned business activity on Sundays, these days the stores are practically 24/7 operations. “The last person leaves at nine at night, and the baker is back by three in the morning,” says Dennis. “We are open 361 days a year, minus Thanksgiving, Christmas, New Year’s, and Easter.”