He and his wife, Sue, sold the Temple Street grocery store to the Patel family, which took over operations Friday. The day before, Mark took time to reminisce about the 44 years of ownership by the Stuczynski family.

His mom and dad, Richard and Lynne, opened the store as a franchise of Convenient in 1978.

He bought the store from his father in 1998 and it transitioned to an independent store in 2002 after Convenient wound down its New York franchising operation.

Mark started working at the store in 1982, after the steel mill layoffs ravaging the area at the time convinced him to leave that line of work. His future wife, Sue, was the Stuczynskis’ first employee in 1978.

Fredonia Mayor Douglas Essek, right, presents Mark and Sue Stuczynski with a proclamation Thursday congratulating the Stuczynski family for their 44 years of operating the Fredonia Food Mart, formerly Convenient.

Their children wound up working there, too. Mark said he thinks it helped set them up for future success as adults. Tara is now a Fredonia Police Department dispatcher and Matt is a captain at the Chautauqua County Jail.

As for Jennifer — you’ve probably heard her story. She went on to win an Olympic gold medal in pole vaulting. Her parents proudly displayed OBSERVER articles about her career in the family store.

Mark Stuczynski wanted to make clear that it took more than just his family to make the store a success.

“Our local support has been totally terrific,” he said. His employees “have been unbelievable. You come across one or two but there hasn’t been many.”

He reminisced a little about the changes since he started back in ’82.

“The technology, the supply lines have changed dramatically,” he said. So have customers’ tastes. “You find people just aren’t using condensed soup or orange juice anymore.” They want items ready-made nowadays and don’t want to bother with mixing in water.

Fredonia Food Mart also had to adapt to changes in village’s demographics. In the ’80s, there were more young families than now. “We’ve seen changes to a more senior clientele,” he said. The store responded to that by instituting a grocery delivery program for seniors.

Mark said the store “never depended on the big-ticket items… We were never known as a ‘Coke and smoke’ shop. We were more established as a grocery store. We always had the fresh meat and produce.”

On their last afternoon of ownership, Mark and Sue showed the ropes to the Patels’ new general manager and received well-wishes and a proclamation from Mayor Douglas Essek. The proclamation congratulated the Stuczynskis for their 44 years in business and declared Thursday was “Convenient Food Mart/Fredonia Food Mart Day” in the village.

Mark is looking forward to his next steps. He wants a new job and is exploring various opportunities.

“I’m going to live a little more stress-free life. I won’t be on call 24-7,” he said.

“I’ve still got a lot of energy and I still like to be around people.”