Super store
Supermercados to open in south Oklahoma City in March
The Ibarra family is well on its way to restoring a property at SE 59 and Santa Fe for a new Supermercados Morelos location that will open later this year.
A business that promotes a rich heritage continues its growth in Oklahoma City.
Supermercados Morelos is opening a fourth store here, and this one, at SE 59 and Santa Fe, is the company’s biggest yet.
It will open on the site of a grocery store that operated at the same location for nearly 75 years. That store, Warehouse Market Discount Foods, opened in 1938 and closed about 2012.
Supermercados Morelos bought the building for an undisclosed price in November 2014, and plans to open a new grocery store in the 50,000-square-foot building in March after spending about $2 million to renovate the space.
The Ibarra family, which owns the business, said the newest location is like the others it operates in Oklahoma City, as it is located near Hispanics who live in surrounding neighborhoods.
However, Jose Ibarra Sr. and Jose Ibarra Jr. said they welcome all customers to each of their stores, and that this newest operation will be no different.
“We are a Hispanic store, but we would like to serve everyone,” Ibarra Jr. said.
Like in the other stores, the newest one will offer customers prepared, traditional Hispanic foods they can enjoy in a cafestyle setting.
It also will offer groceries, cookies, cakes and other bakery items, tamales, pork carnitas — something the Ibarras said their home state of Michoacan in Mexico is famous for — and produce, plus and a large selection of meats that can be cut to customers’ specifications.
And, since the Ibarras own the building, they also plan to offer more.
The grocery store, they explained, will occupy only about 19,000 square feet of the building, leaving other space they intend to partly offer for another retail operation.
Ibarra Sr. said a decision on what business might fill that space has not yet been made.
“We already are talking ... about the retail spaces,” Ibarra Sr. said. “We have lots of interest.”
Plus the renovation is turning about 8,000 square feet on the building’s west side into an event center Supermercados Morelos will operate.
It also plans to use space on the building’s north side to create a central kitchen that will produce salsa and other Supermercados Morelos products that will be sold both there and at other Supermercados locations in Oklahoma City.
Ibarra Jr. said those types of products are made at each location now, and that because of that, each differs slightly.
Producing those products from a central location should standardize the products’ taste and quality, he continued.
The family’s economic footprint continues to grow, as it also has stores in Tulsa and in Texas.
Ibarra Sr. said he, his son and other members of his family are managing the Oklahoma City businesses, while cousins manage the stores in Tulsa and in Texas.
As he provided a recent tour of the space, Ibarra Sr. seemed excited by the opportunity he sees to share his culture with future customers.
He noted the store carries the name of Morelos because the Ibarras originally are from Morelia, a community in Mexico’s Michoacan state named to honor its native son Jose Maria Morelos, a priest who was a leader of Mexico’s independence movement in 1811 and who died for the cause.
“So we have two reasons to use the name,” Ibarra Sr. said, smiling.
As for the family’s experience as Oklahoman grocers, Ibarra Sr. said they have been well accepted in all the markets where they operate. They opened their first store in Oklahoma City 13 years ago, he said.
“The things we have been able to do with our stores show people like us and the way we do business,” Ibarra Sr. said.
His son, Ibarra Jr., agreed, adding that while Supermercados Morelos is a business and seeks to make money, the family has a larger mission than just that.
“Our top goal is to serve the community,” he said.
Pete White, the Oklahoma City councilman who represents that part of the community, applauds the development.
White noted he grew up close to that location and also had spent a good part of his life residing in the area, too.
“It puts another grocery store closer to people who live over on the east side of Interstate 35,” White said. “It is a great location, I think. And its going to be really good to see it getting back into being used.
“It’s going to be nice.”