Danny O’Malia talks about how his father, Joe O’Malia, made a comeback when opening grocery stores in the 1960s, after having to close his first stores.
Here is the transcript:
Ryan: Now I would like to introduce our 3-minute speaker this evening, so excuse me, Danny O’Malia is going to be our next speaker. And so, Danny has been in the grocery business since he was 8 years old, when his father, Joe O’Malia, started his first grocery store. And ever since then, he’s had an extensive understanding of how the grocery business works and how to provide exceptional customer service to everyone who walks in the door.
Ryan: So, now I’d like to introduce everyone to Danny O’Malia, Indy’s Trusted Servant.
Danny: All right, this is the comeback of Sparks. This is about the Joe O’Malia Comeback. My father, Joe. Let’s see here. OK. I always. OK.
Danny: When I was a little kid in the early to mid 50s, he was the general manager of Stop and Shop stores here in Indianapolis, locally owned by Mr. Frankovitz and Mr. Frisch, that was his business card back then. He was a tremendous merchandiser.
Danny: That was a Stokely Van Camp Old Indianapolis company display that he built back in the early 50s at Stop and Shop. It took up the whole aisle.
Danny: This is, if I get this right, [unintelligible] these things. Oh yeah, you see that display there? Really, you’re going to love this. He won $50.00 from Dr. Pepper for being the best Dr. Pepper display, and I drink a lot of diet Dr. Pepper.
Danny: His first grocery store that he bought was right there, where the Vanguard Bar in Broad Ripple is. It had one cash register, about 9 employees, one was an 8, 9, 10-year-old kid who was very successful, but they opened the second store out on the West side of town, got into debt with the bank. It didn’t go as well and when he left for the second store, the people that were in the first store couldn’t handle it very well without him, and he lost both stores.
Danny: OK, so what did he do? Well, one of the things he always told me, and he used to use –
Danny: This is my daughter Colleen, did this thing here. And those are the 9 Joe O’Malia Food Markets that came up 10 years after he lost the first store.
Danny: One of the things he always taught me, and he used sports as an analogy, never ever, ever give up. And boy, he didn’t give up. He worked for a couple of other grocery companies in the interim, came back and successfully opened O’Malia Food Markets.
Danny: This is my dad with his first customer, Nancy McNevin, 1966 and his first employee, Danny Barton, who had worked with him at another grocery chain before. Danny was the produce manager. That was taken in front of the first store, 106th and College for our 25th anniversary.
Danny: Come on. I always have trouble with this.
Danny: Oh, here we go. This is the ribbon cutting at the 6th O’Malia Store in 1982. 126th and Gray in Carmel. The builder, the mayor, the store manager, me, and my dad.
Danny: Then we did a lot of stuff in the community. We were able to do that because of our success. This is the Joe O’Malia Gym at Our Lady of Mount Carmel, there’s the Joe O’Malia Performing Arts Center at Cathedral High School. We were successful and we gave back to the community.
Danny: My dad taught me all of that stuff, and that is going to be the end of my 3 minutes, unfortunately. Thank you very much.
Ryan: Good job. Thank you, Danny.
