The History of Hoppers Family Market
Hoppers Family Market is located at 7467 Ala. Highway 69 North in Cullman, Alabama.
Hoppers Family Market has proudly served the Fairview area and surrounding communities since April 16, 2011, with a high quality grocery store, providing small town hospitality with sincere customer care and service.
The Vision
In the fall of 2009, the old OEC Building, located in the town on Hwy. 69 was left vacated. It was a large 40,000 square foot metal frame warehouse.
In the spring of 2010, the OEC Warehouse went up for sale. Mr. Randall Shed contacted Mike and Jimmie Hopper. Mike was no stranger to the grocery store business. He was literally raised in a grocery store. His Dad and Mom, Jack and Imogene Hopper, owned and operated Hoppers General Merchandise in Eva. This store sold everything from a full service gas station, to clothes and apparel, shoes, grain, animal feed, hardware and plumbing supplies and a grocery store with a fresh meat butcher shop. As Mike became a teenager, he was trained by his Dad to cut meat and worked in the family business as a meat butcher, until he went off to Auburn University.
Vision Becomes Reality
Mike and Jimmie Hopper saw the need for an upscale supermarket and pharmacy and purchased the building in the summer of 2010. They began the insurmountable process of remodeling the warehouse into a top quality supermarket that it is today. Mike contracted with Associated Wholesale Grocers out of Kansas City to be the grocery supplier because of their large variety. Jimmie cast the vision to have a high quality grocery store, with many amenities not found in the local area. It was decided to offer new modern services to meet the needs of our local patrons while keeping old services such as helping customers out with their grocery’s and good ole small town hospitality with sincere customer care!
Grand Opening
After 9 months of hard work, opening day finally arrived on April 16, 2011. The store opened at 10:00 am with a bang and had support of the community and surrounding areas. Everyone was extremely excited about their local full service grocery store. However, the excitement of opening day would be short lived.
Tornado
April 27, 2011. That date will always live in the memory of today’s generation. 11 days after the store opened, the State of Alabama suffered the worst outbreak of Tornadoes since April 1974.
At 2:40 pm, a large F-4 Tornado touched down north of Smith Lake on County Road 310, spreading a path of destruction through Cullman, Morgan and Marshall Counties. By the time it would end, the large Tornado would travel 48 miles, leaving a path 88 feet wide, with average winds of 166-200 miles an hour, claiming 6 fatalities and 48 injuries. The Tornado took a northeasterly track, leading it to the Town of Fairview.
At 3:03 pm, as the employees of Hoppers Family Market huddled for safety in the walk-in Meat Cooler. By the grace of God, the path of the Tornado missed the store by a 1/8 mile. Devastation of the town and surrounding areas was horrific. Electric power was completely cut-off in the area for 5 days. AWG sent refrigerated trucks in to store the cold food that could be salvaged.
Re-Grand Opening
On May 1, 2011, Hoppers Family Market reopened to serve the Town of Fairview and surrounding areas. Times were hard and difficult for everyone as homes and lives were rebuilt. But as difficult as it may have been, everyone pulled together and pressed on. Two years later, Mike and Jimmie were excited to open Hopper Family Pharmacy!
Today, Hoppers Family Market continues to grow and strive to meet the needs of our customers, while continuing to hold forth the Vision that was our opening pledge – “We pledge to make a difference in our customers’ lives every day with high quality food, low prices and friendly helpful service.”
