Changing with the times

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This article was published 17/08/2019 (1707 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

Scott Schriemer is living proof of the adage, a change is as good as a rest.

Unable to recall the last time he took a few days off in a row, never mind an honest-to-goodness, kick-your-feet-up-and-relax vacation, Schriemer, owner of Vic’s Fruit Market, 1038 Pembina Hwy., is currently in the process of rebranding his store as simply Vic’s Market. The abbreviated tag is his way of telling the world it has been eons since apples and oranges were the only commodities available at the Fort Garry fixture, founded by his father in 1958.

His nephew Nick works there, too. When the pair began talking about redesigning the outside of their building last July, Nick mentioned one of the first things they should do is drop the ‘fruit’ from their sign, given they’re “so much more than that,” says Schriemer, a married father of seven who succeeded his brother Trevor as owner in 2000, six years after Trevor bought out their dad, Wietze (Vic) Schriemer, when the elder Schriemer retired.

“We’re currently in the process of redoing our website, where we intend to advertise the fact that besides fruits and vegetables, we also have a full-service deli, a kitchen where we prepare baked goods and pre-cooked items such as chicken fingers, as well as everyday commodities like milk and eggs,” Schriemer says, leaning against a table laden with “Vic’s Pick,” pints of fresh, Manitoba strawberries priced at $2.99 each. “Four of my kids work for me and we sometimes joke how about the only thing you won’t find here is toilet paper.”

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Wietze Schriemer was born and raised in Drachten, a town in the northern half of the Netherlands. His older brother Klaas moved to Winnipeg in the late 1940s. Wietze followed suit, joining his sibling here in 1955, a few months after he turned 18.

Know how the term “shoveling (crap)” is often used to describe a job that’s boring or tedious? Well, Wietze actually did that for a living, his son says.

“One of his first jobs after he arrived was cleaning out box cars in the dead of winter. He’d climb in with his shovel, where all these cows or pigs had been, and go to it.”

In 1957, Wietze purchased an existing truck route. On a daily basis he drove from wholesaler to wholesaler, picking up fresh produce, which he turned around and delivered to various retailers, one of whom had trouble pronouncing his given name.

“One morning this guy told my dad if he was going to live in Canada he was going to need a different name. ‘From now on, I’m going to call you Vic,’ he said, to which my dad responded, ‘OK, sounds good,’” Schriemer says with a chuckle.

Wanting a business of his own, Wietze, er, Vic opened a small, roadside stand in 1958, stocked with bedding plants and seasonal produce. He eventually replaced his stand, which he’d dubbed Vic’s Fruit Market, with what his son refers to as “the shack,” a larger, more stable structure that could be loaded onto a flatbed and moved from place to place, if need be.

“I believe his original spot was at the corner of Point Road and Pembina, but when that became unavailable — I think his lease ran out or something — he loaded things up and moved just down the street to McGillivray (Boulevard) and Pembina. Later on, he was at the corner of Chevrier (Boulevard) and Pembina. It really was quite the operation.” (In between all that, Schriemer’s dad made a point of returning to Holland every winter, to visit family and friends. In 1963, while he and a buddy were skating on a frozen canal, they spotted a couple gals about their age skating in the opposite direction. Wietze turned to his pal and said, “Let’s catch up to them.” Six months later, he and Grace Schriemer became husband and wife.)

In 1986, the owner of the building at 1038 Pembina Hwy., which shares a parking lot with the venerable Cambridge Hotel, approached the elder Schriemer with a proposition. How would he like to put down permanent roots by renting space inside his 5,000-square-foot property? By then, Schriemer’s brother Trevor was working at Vic’s full-time. Father and son discussed the offer. A few days later, they got back to the fellow, telling him they were in.

Schriemer, 48, started working for his dad at age 12, when Vic’s was one of four self-contained units within the same building. As time went on, his dad absorbed each of the neighbouring businesses one by one, until his store was the lone tenant left.

“For sure there were some tough times along the way,” Schriemer says, specifically recalling when Superstore arrived in Winnipeg in the mid-1980s, and was “practically giving stuff away,” in order to get its foot in the door. “My dad, who’s 82, always gave it his all and never got down when things weren’t going the way he might have liked. Even after he retired, he still pulled a few shifts a week for years. He was just here this afternoon, as a matter of fact, saying hi to some of the regulars. He built a good, strong business and we’re certainly reaping the benefits of his accomplishments.”

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Schriemer hears the critics, people who say shopping in a boutique grocery store such as his is more expensive, and that their money won’t go as far as it would at a large chain. To some degree that’s true, he says, admitting he’s never going to be able to compete with Wal-Mart, for example, when it comes to staples such as eggs and bread. For most items, though, he believes his prices compare favourably. Not that grocery shopping should always be about getting the best deal, he contends.

“One of the things my dad taught me is no matter how busy my day is, always take a moment or two to talk to the customers, the ones who put food on our table,” he says. “We have lots of people who started coming here with their parents, and now show up with their own children, because they seem to appreciate the personal touch we try to offer. Plus, if a person is here often enough, you can usually tell how things are going just by their demeanour. One time I approached somebody who’d been shopping here forever, only to find out she’d recently been diagnosed with cancer. I said we were pulling for her and gave her a bouquet of flowers, saying, here, that’s from all of us.”

“Don’t get me started,” Schriemer says, when the topic of road construction is brought up. This is the third summer in a row traffic flow on Pembina Highway has been affected by work on the Jubilee underpass and surrounding area. It’s had an adverse effect on his bottom line, no doubt about it, he says.

“Ever since my dad moved here in ’86, business had only gone in one direction, up” he goes on, using his right hand to mimic an airplane taking off. “In 2017, the first year of construction, sales were down and then last summer was our worst ever. If you punish people long enough by making it difficult for them to get where they want to go, even the diehards will say it’s not worth it, after a while.”

There’s been an uptick this summer, he’s happy to report, and with work on the underpass scheduled to wrap up by the end of the month — at least that’s what he’s been told by the city — he anticipates things will be back to normal by fall.

As for future plans, Schriemer is already looking ahead to 2020, when he intends to open a “mini-Vic’s” adjacent to his greenhouse in East St. Paul, the same facility where he currently grows all the tomatoes, cucumbers, eggplants and herbs he sells in his store. The satellite location will operate from May to Thanksgiving, he says, and will include an ice cream stand.

Additionally, his intention is to turn over the keys to the main store to his nephew somewhere down the line, ensuring Vic’s will remain in the family for another generation at least.

“We used to think it’d be nice if one of our own kids took over, but at the same time I hated the thought of them working 80-hour weeks like their dad,” he says. “I absolutely love what I do, but if I’m being honest, there have definitely been times when I’ve put in too many hours at the expense of spending time with the people I love. My dad was a hard worker, I have two brothers who are scientists who probably log the same number of hours per week as me; the apple doesn’t fall far from the tree in my family. But life happens before you know it and there needs to be a healthy balance.”

Finally, we asked Schriemer a question that had been on our mind for a while: if you’re the owner of a grocery store, does your better half still get in touch, letting you know what to pick up on the way home?

“Ha, that was my wife on the phone just now,” he says, sliding his cellphone into the back pocket of his jeans. “Usually if the kids are here she’ll give them a list of what we need but this time the message was a bit simpler. She just told me to make sure to bring back something good.”

David Sanderson writes about Winnipeg-centric restaurants and businesses.

david.sanderson@freepress.mb.ca