Another Penny Mart store is scheduled to open Monday in Hagerstown.
The business at 846 W. Washington St. will be Penny Mart’s second location in the city. Jamil Malik, CEO of the Frederick-based company, said he plans to open other stores in the city in the coming months and eventually offer franchise opportunities.
The new store is tucked among homes and next to the Country Washtub laundromat.
“We always look for good spots,” Malik said. “That’s our business model. ... There’s nothing else (another food store) in this whole area. We look for locations where there is a need.”
Penny Mart’s concept is something of a grocery and deli, Malik said, offering items such as sandwiches, wings and pizza.
The stores also sell canned and frozen foods, tobacco products, paper goods and other items.
Suppliers were bringing items into the West Washington Street store late last week, as workers were putting finishing touches on the remodeling.
“This used to be a liquor store a long time ago,” Malik said of the West Washington Street building. “We remodeled the whole thing in like seven weeks.”
The store will employ about 10 people, he said.
Penny Mart used a similar plan with the first store at 167 S. Potomac St.
That space, on the first floor of a building at Potomac and Baltimore streets, previously housed a clothing store. Penny Mart had it remodeled to suit its retail use. It opened there on Sept. 1.
That store employs about a dozen people, Malik said.
The South Potomac Street store has been more successful than he forecast, he said.
The results there encouraged him to continue with the plan to open more stores in Hagerstown.
Penny Mart leases both spaces from the building owners, he said.
Malik said he has experience in management positions with other retailers and is a former franchise owner with Jerry’s Subs and Pizza.
He started making plans for his own chain of stores years ago, he said.
Among other things, that plan included buying the pennymart.com domain name, as well as a “lot of love and effort and hard work.”
Jamil Malik, CEO of Penny Mart, stands outside the new store at 846 W. Washington St. in Hagerstown. The store is scheduled to open Monday. The company also has a store at 167 S. Potomac ST. and Malik said he plans to open others in the city. Mike Lewis
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Date: April 3rd 2021
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