Agemy & Sons Market closes after more than 95 years of business in metro Detroit

Agemy & Sons Market, a landmark business in the Downriver community of Allen Park known for its choice and prime meats, is no more.

Saturday was the last day for the family-owned grocer and butcher shop which, for generations, had still broken down hinds and quarters of cattle every week.

For 65 years, longtime owner Joe Agemy said the store processed 10-15 cattle a week for its metro Detroit customers.

“Agemy’s was SOLD!!” read the business' Facebook post on Sunday.

What followed were comments of congratulations, compliments on its service and commitment to the local community.

Comments came from current and former customers and their memories of the store.

“I hired numerous kids in the neighborhood, I was fortunate in that way,” Agemy said.

Agemy, the third-generation owner of Agemy & Sons Market, told the Free Press that he put the business up for sale about a year ago.

No financial details were revealed of the sale, but Agemy said an investor bought the building and the business. Agemy said he sold because he needs to tend to “some minor health issue.”

“With all honesty, I would die here,” he said. "But I got hip issues. I got the ankle issues from, you know, carrying sides of beef and general wear and tear.“

Cutting meat runs deep

Agemy & Sons opened in 1959, when the Agemy family bought what was then Bouts Market, on Champaign at the corner of Rosedale in Allen Park.

“It was half the size (that it is today), and my father ran it until 1965, knocked it down and built a brand-new store,” said Agemy, who has been running the store alone since 1981.

Agemy grew up in the meat-cutting business. He learned the art of the meat butchery trade from his father, Mack, and the general grocery/produce business from his uncle Joe — for whom he is named.

Mack and Joe learned from their father, Hasan, who started the family’s meat and grocery store business in 1929 on Victor Street in Highland Park as Agemy Market.

The business later moved to 2448 John R St. in Detroit in the mid-1940s, Agemy recalled, and the family changed the name of the business to Agemy & Sons Market.

As the owner of the market since 1981, Agemy, now 65, taught his son, fourth-generation Mason Agemy, the meat-cutting skills and the grocery business.

The younger Agemy worked as his father did, in the store when he was a young boy and continued to work with his father at the Allen Park store after college and as an adult.

All those generations of Agemy-trained meat cutters brought decades of prime and choice meat cuts to Downriver customers, plus plenty of produce, groceries and its award-winning pizza rolls.

“Our trade was the meats,” Agemy said. “My grandfather was a meat man. All that meat trade my father taught me as well as and I taught my son.”

In the early '80s, Agemy’s father and uncle retired from the business.

“I knew everybody since I was a boy, 7, 8, 9 years old bagging groceries,” he said. “I knew every customer that come in the door and by Mr. or Mrs.”

Long-term vendors

Agemy credits decades of success to knowing the business, having good vendors service the business and his quality hand in cattle.

“We would actually break the cattle up here, and, you know, put in our counters,” Agemy said. “It came into the store in front and hind quarters and then you cut from there. We were still doing that up until closing. No one had pot roast like us … bone-in cuts of sirloin steaks and so on and so forth."

Agemy’s son, Mason, now 30, who double majored in business administration and finance at the University of Michigan, learned from his father and stayed in the business.

“He knows how to break a side a beef. He knows how to handle customers and talk to people, you know, quality and service,” Agemy said. “He was raised in the store like I was, since he was 7, 8 years old.”

For decades, Agemy traveled several times a week to meat and produce purveyors at Detroit’s Eastern Market and the Detroit Produce Terminal.

“Everyone in the industry knows us because we’re very, very picky about we bought,” he said. “I was at (Eastern Market) three, four days a week, picking out our stuff, and they would deliver,” he said. “I was stamping my own cattle, getting prime New York strips, all high-end stuff. I was a pain in their butt.”

Agemy said he has dealt with many Eastern Market district vendors over the years, including market mainstays Ernst Meats and Seafood, Kap's Wholesale Food Services, and Wolverine Packing Co.

Eric Grosinger, the owner of Kap's Whole Food Services, said he delivered products to Agemy & Sons Market as a kid and called Agemy an "old-school butcher" who buys high quality products.

"He's (Agemy) a phenomenal meat technician with knowledge to set a retail counter like no other, " Grosinger said. "If it had to do with setting a retail meat counter, that man could have taught a university class on it."

Agemy is not calling the sale a retirement. He still has some outside accounts that he has tended to for 45-plus years, such as industrial companies, businesses and car dealerships, where he provides them with gift box steaks, turkeys and hams during the holidays.

“Hopefully, I might continue taking care of them or something. I'm not one to sit around or watch the grass grow,” he said.

Agemy said he will miss everything: “The people, the business, the meat … everything … even the aggravation. This is what I do. “

Contact Detroit Free Press food and restaurant writer Susan Selasky and send food and restaurant news and tips to: sselasky@freepress.com. Follow @SusanMariecooks on Twitter. Subscribe to the Free Press .

This article originally appeared on Detroit Free Press: Agemy & Sons Market closes after more than 95 years of business in metro Detroit