Key Market will stay open for now Key Market will stay open for now (December 22, 2004)

** Neighborhood market was set to close, but customers changed owners' minds.

By Marion Softky

Almanac Staff Writer

For 26 years, Jack Dehoff's Key Market at El Camino Real and 5th Avenue just south of Redwood City has built a loyal clientele of customers from two worlds.

Residents of the largely Latino community of North Fair Oaks to the north and east, and upscale Atherton and Menlo Park to the south and west, come to the friendly neighborhood supermarket for rice and beans and filet mignon.

But when dozens of day laborers started hanging out on the corner hoping to be picked up for a job, customers were put off and business plummeted, Mr. Dehoff said, adding that he and his son Chris decided they could no longer afford to keep it going.

The announcement that the Key Market would close last Saturday, December 18, provoked a deluge of calls and letters from customers asking for the store to remain open. "We got a great response from customers, so we plan to stay open," said Jack Dehoff. They have started ordering new stock.

Meanwhile, the problems of -- and for -- day laborers may lessen when San Mateo County opens a new day laborer center in North Fair Oaks, possibly by the end of February. "That's our hope," said Supervisor Rose Jacobs Gibson, who has been working with the county and the community to solve the problem.

Funding is in place for a one-year pilot project, and negotiations to obtain a location and an operator are ongoing. In September, the county allocated $20,000 toward the $40,000 price tag. The 5th Avenue merchants will contribute $11,000, Chris Dehoff said.

"We will stay around," he said. "But we just can't wait forever."

Outreach will be key to making the new day laborer center successful, Supervisor Jacobs Gibson warned. "It's not as easy as people think. This is not just North Fair Oaks, it's a national issue."

The challenge is to convince both the day laborers and the employers to use the new center, Ms. Jacobs Gibson said. "This has to do with relationships, how people feel. It's a very delicate balance."

Meanwhile, Dr. Margaret Ziegler of Menlo Park is one of the faithful customers who want to see a solution for both the market and the day laborers. "These people do need work, and we need laborers, and we need a safe place to shop," she told the Almanac.
Neighborhood supermarket

Dr. Ziegler often meets Atherton neighbors when she shops at Key Market. "I've seen Jerry Rice two or three times," she said.

Smaller than today's mega-supermarkets, the market on 5th Avenue opened in 1960 as a Purity. Mr. Dehoff bought it in 1978 and changed the name. He has three other Key Markets: Marsh Manor on Marsh Road; his first market on Roosevelt Avenue in Redwood City; and a market in San Mateo.

Day laborers, desperate for work, first started hanging around the corner when the 5th Avenue underpass was being built, Jack Dehoff said. On a recent Tuesday, about 40 were lounging in small groups along the street, under the lamp posts, and at the entrance to the vacant auction house on 5th Avenue.

"We sympathize with the workers. They're out there at 7 a.m," Jack Dehoff said. "Only about 10 percent get jobs. People take advantage of them."

But the workers also unwittingly intimidate customers. When a potential employer drives up, especially in a pickup, Chris Dehoff said, workers run to be the first. Sometimes one will climb in.

And the workers are often exploited, he said. "Sometimes they don't even get a ride home."

"It's kind of frustrating to operate a grocery store in that environment," said Jack Dehoff. "If they had a place they could go, it would be much better."

The Dehoffs and other merchants in the North Fair Oaks area have been working for a couple of years to get a center for day laborers, like similar centers in San Mateo and Mountain View/Los Altos. "Everything takes so long. The wheels just move so slowly," Chris said.

He urged people to contact Supervisor Jacobs Gibson at 363-4570.

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