Honor Capital to acquire Save-A-Lot on York Street in Aiken

Dec. 02--Honor Capital, a company owned primarily by military veterans, is in the process of acquiring the Save-A-Lot grocery store at 522 York Street that recently closed. The company plans to reopen the supermarket by March 2017.

"We are definitely excited to be coming to Aiken," said Marcus Scarborough, Honor Capital's vice president for community engagement, during a telephone interview. "South Carolina has been a great market for us."

Scarborough is a native of Columbia, where Honor Capital operates a Save-A-Lot store on Harden Street.

"It's doing really well," Scarborough said. "It's our pride and joy, and it's the Save-A-Lot chain's pride and joy. It's what they call a 'show store,' which means they bring interested retailers or licensees to it when they want to show them what a Save-A-Lot is supposed to look like and how it is supposed to run when everything is executed superbly."

Honor Capital is based in Tulsa, Oklahoma, and has a Save-A-Lot supermarket there. The company also runs a Save-A-Lot in Winfield, Kansas, and is getting ready to open Save-A-Lots in Wichita, Kansas, and Mooresville, North Carolina.

According to Honor Capital's website, the company "particularly likes" to operate Save-A-Lot stores in underserved and distressed communities.

The Save-A-Lot discount supermarket chain has more than 1,300 locations. About 70 percent of Save-A-Lot stores are owned and operated by independent licensed retailers.

"We've spoken to the Save-A-Lot development team and the owner of the Aiken store," Scarborough said. "Our teams also have gone into the Aiken store and gotten some anecdotal feedback from shoppers to get a feel for how the store is doing and what we can improve."

Scarborough discussed several changes that Honor Capital will be making.

"We will offer an expanded selection of bakery and produce items along with a brighter, more attractive shopping experience," he said. "We will bring in our expertise in fresh meat to ensure that we offer the local community the variety they demand and the freshness they deserve with our in-store, daily fresh-cut meat program."

Honor Capital's eight-man management team includes six Navy veterans and one Marine Corps veteran. Five are graduates of the United States Naval Academy.

"We like to let people know that we are a veteran-owned small business," Scarborough said. "We say it loud and proud."

For more information about Honor Capital, visit www.honorcapitalllc.com.

Dede Biles is a general assignment reporter for the Aiken Standard and has been with the newspaper since January 2013. A native of Concord, N.C, she graduated from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.

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