KJ’s Markets opens new, improved Pamplico Highway store

FLORENCE, S.C. — The Pamplico Highway KJ’s Market received a complete makeover Monday and Tuesday as the store works to position itself for the future — a bright, clean and open future.

“Wanted to created a new shopping experience for our guests,” said Tim Lowe, the head of Alex Lee Retail. “In 2019 the KJ’s became part of our W. Lee Flowers Company. We had a great vision.”

In 2019 Alex Lee acquired W. Lee Flowers, based in lower Florence County. The company also operates Lowe’s Foods, Merchant Distributors and Souto Foods.

“COVID kinda slowed us down as we worked through all that. Now we’re back on track now that we’re post COVID and we’re really excited about it, we’re opening our first store right here in Florence to reveal the new KJ’s market,” Lowe said.

Toward that end, after time spent in planning and studying, the Pamplico Highway market closed Monday and Tuesday as crews worked to make the store of the future. Tuesday night media were allowed in to talk with management about the changes.

At the end of the day the plan was to remake the store without leaving behind the things shoppers loved.

The new store offers an enhanced meat counter but continues to feature a large selection of fish, butcher boxes that can feed a family and now offers whole hogs on site if a shopper is in the mood for a barbecue.

The new store offers fresh fruit for children to eat during their parents’ shopping, a selection of knock knock and dad jokes children can use with store staff and a restaurant on site — the Bluebird Kitchen.

The kitchen — not just a deli hot bar — will offer full meals centered on Southern cooking as well as biscuits baked fresh in the store. The biscuits, square, will include breakfast and lunch biscuits.

“At the end of the day we did ethnography where we went and sat down with the community and asked the community what do you really want from a market. What we heard loud and clear from them was they said they want someone who is passionate about our community, the center of the plate matters a lot and often in other communities we serve we’re the only location they can get a hot meal at a great value from,” Lowe said.

“We leaned very heavily into our butcher shop and our Bluebird Kitchen and it’s delivering that experience and we have some great experiences for our young shoppers as well,” Lowe said.

“At the end of the day we want the guest to have a great shopping experience here at KJ’s. So we went through and upgraded the lighting, the layout of the store to make it more open, not just feel more open,” Lowe said. “We want people to find this as a destination point where they, as a community, come and gather.”

“We’ve been talking about this brand for over two years. We’ve been developing what this brand is going to be,” Lowe said. “The last two days is when it’s come together. The last two days we closed the store, ripped the Band-Aids off, got all the decor up and Wednesday morning, tomorrow, we’re ready to open the doors for the community.”

While the decor will be new, and the lighting as well, there are takes on the apostrophe in KJ’s market scattered throughout and added features like a candy island where shoppers can buy it by the pound. The meat department will also offer mix-and-match dinner offerings.

“The hardware is the physical plant. In our physical plant the things I’m most proud of is our Bluebird Kitchen and our brand-new butcher shop,” Lowe said.

Changes extend beyond just bits and bobs of the store.

“At the end of the day it’s the transformation of our people We’ve invested hours and hours back into our people, hiring additional folks to help us take care of the community and then train those folks so they’re prepared when the community comes to see us. That’s the software,” Lowe said. “The physical plant matters but the people make the difference.”

Such training extended to the staff at the Bluebird Kitchen which trained for a week offsite to hone members’ culinary skills.

KJ’s footprint covers much of South Carolina with seven located around the Pee Dee.

“Doing the first one is always the biggest step,” Lowe said. “We are looking to continue the evolution so next year the next store we have up for bids is our Ebenezer store.”

Work will start on it next year and include lessons learned from the Pamplico Highway store, he said

“We going to continue to learn and make sure we have all the bugs worked out and then we we do we’ll be able to accelerate our expansion and begin to bring this great brand across all our KJ’s stores,” he said.

“This is the tip of the spear of innovation,” Lowe said. “We want to come here and create a different new brand. We’re really excited about it.”

While the organization pumps up one brand, it’s not going to abandon its other.

“IGA is a great brand and we want to continue to support that brand,” Lowe said. “We don’t know if every store needs to be KJ’s specifically; we do believe every store deserves a great shopping experience.”