Rebirth of a market? : Great-granddaughter of former owner looks to revitalize Jeacola's Market in Lorain

LORAIN — For Maria Jeancola, the storefront at Leavitt Road and West Erie Avenue has always been something special. She can remember helping her grandmother sell cigarettes and lottery tickets from behind the counter, and her grandfather dutifully standing behind the meat counter day in, day out. Walking into Jeancola's Market on a hot summer day, she isn't quite sure what changed it from a place she grew up in to a place she wants to pass on to her own children — but she's putting plans in motion to rehab the former storefront and nearby Delmonico's barber shop to match a city on the rise. William Jeancola III and his wife, Lucille, opened the original store in the mid-1940s. Known for its meat counter and specialty Italian foods, the family expanded the store up and out, and eventually passed it on to Maria's grandparents, William Jeancola Sr. and his wife, Olga. Their son, William Jeancola Jr., added the Artwear screen printing and embroidery shop to the mix. After William Sr. died in the early 1990s, Olga and William Jr. — Maria's father — ran the business until the family couldn't compete with the larger chain stores moving into the area. The store closed in 1997. After Olga's death in 2015, William Jr. and his sisters inherited the property and it has been for sale ever since. "My grandma held on to the store until she passed. I think that she would've felt guilty letting it go, because my grandpa loved this place so much. I'm grateful that nothing happened, I'm grateful my family were a bunch of hoarders who kept everything," she said, laughing. Working through the dust and clutter has been like reopening a time capsule for Maria Jeancola. The specials sign next to the meat counter still has her handwriting from roughly 30 years prior, she said, along with the names and phone numbers of former customers, friends and boyfriends scrawled on the wall nearby by her younger self, or her grandparents. And every day she and her daughter Nevaeh, 14, spend sorting through boxes has brought new bits of her family's past to life. The last time she was in the store was about 12 years ago, she said, but at the time it didn't mean much beyond sentimentality. There was a shift when she found an extensive collection of iron-on transfers from her dad's screen-printing shop and gave them a try. Surprisingly, the more than 40-year-old transfers worked — breathing new life into Rolling Stones, Boston and Looney Toons designs. When she searched for the company to find better instructions, she found Ebay listings for the transfers showing their profitability — and a potential venture for her teenage daughter. Nevaeh and Maria launched an Etsy page for the vintage designs, JeancolasMarket, but Maria began to realize it could be something more. "Every time I drove by I just kept thinking and envisioning Jeancola's Market's name pointing down (state route) 58 proudly, for almost 60 years," she said. "And this was my childhood and this is something I'm proud of and it's been closed for 23 years. ... It hasn't sold, it's not in the condition to sell and sure, somebody could buy this and rip out the walls and turn it into whatever they want. Somebody could put a gas station, God forbid another Dollar General, or something like that here. But for some reason, every single thing about standing in here feels right." Maria began posting vintage photos of the market's heyday on Facebook, hearing stories of her grandparents delivering groceries or helping families buy on credit — not caring if they were ever paid back for the goods. "My grandma spent her life helping people," she said. "Every person I've ever asked, that's all you hear. … I want to carry that on." While she doesn't think a grocery store is a viable option, she wants to reopen the storefront as a place for her daughter's vintage-style T-shirts, and other local entrepreneurs who need a physical space to sell their products, while potentially carrying some of the specialty Italian foodstuffs the former market was known for. The former Delmonico's barbershop is slated to become a lash and brow bar, trading the red and blue barber lights for pinks and golds. She hopes to have the barbershop overhauled and open by early 2021, and the full storefront to follow later that year. Most of all, she wants to carry on her family's business, almost 80 years after it started. She said her father told her he would understand if she chose to back out — but she's never been more sure of a business venture before. "I'm an entrepreneur at heart," she said. "I cannot work for someone else, I understand how hard it is to run a business. I helped since I was born. And I saw the struggles and I saw the hard times and I saw the good times and it's just right. I cannot drive down this street 10 years from now and not see this building here." Maria Jeancola established a GoFundMe to help cover the costs to renovate the storefront, starting with the broken window in the front and working inward. To donate or for more information on Nevaeh's Etsy shop, visit the market's Facebook page @jeancolasmarket or www.jeancolasmarket.com. Contact Carissa Woytach at (440) 329-7245 or cwoytach@chroniclet.com.