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(Enlarge) Betty Yates Jacobs, standing in front of Yates Market, opened by her great-grandfather in 1885, is changing the store to focus on the deli and coffee side of the business. She’ll stop grocery delivery, a 125-year-old tradition. (Photo by Anthony Castellano)

Stepping into the Yates Market at 8249 Main St. is taking a step back in time.

Canned goods line wooden shelves from the floor to the tin ceiling. An antique coffee grinder still gets a daily workout. Tattered-eared photographs displayed throughout the store tell the story of Main Street's oldest business, from horse-drawn grocery deliveries to family members who have kept the business operating since 1885.

It's a story that will continue, says its owner Betty Yates Jacobs, to the relief of long-time patrons and visitors of Ellicott City's Historic District.

Rumors of the market's demise have been greatly exaggerated, Betty Yates Jacobs said.

No, the longest running business on Main Street is not closing. But it is changing.

"It has taken me a while to think of exactly what I should do," Jacobs said.

Effective March 1, the store will no longer sell dry goods and groceries but will remain open as a deli. Up until January first of this year, the store still delivered groceries. That service will end.

Customers will still be able to get their beloved hand-packed bags of Pferrerkorn coffee, sandwiches, salads, and pre-ordered meats and seafood, which Jacobs will continue to order from Faidley's Seafood in Lexington Market.

And the family's secret-recipe homemade sage sausage will continue to be available.

'A necessary change'

"It will be different around here," said Jacobs, who took over the business after her father, S. Bladen Yates, died in December 2002. His grandfather started the store in 1885.

"I am not one to see outside the box. But it was a necessary change," Jacobs said.

Running the business alone, Jacobs said it was getting more and more difficult to get grocery orders placed and delivered.

So, she has started to clear out her inventory. Inside the market, hand-written "For Sale" signs are posted on display cases, a freezer chest and other appliances that come with operating a small grocery store.

As she clears out inventory, she also has been unearthing items that reflect the store's history, from a 1926 ledger to placemats from the old Eddie's lunch counter that was once down the street, wooden crates once filled with glass Coca-Cola bottles, and a 1897 receipt book for Metropolitan Life Insurance, which her grandfather and great-grandfather sold.

Jacobs is donating the items to the Howard County Historical Society where executive director Richard Flint said he is excited to welcome them into the society's collection of historical treasures.

"It solves, in a sense, her challenge of what to do with all of this stuff," Flint said. "She certainly doesn't want to just discard it. She has an appreciation for the history of Ellicott City and the county and her family's role in it.

"What she has is a vestige of the past," he continued, noting it is one of the few stores left that offers a chance to compare a market that was typical of life in the community before the World War II era to the big grocery store chains of today.

"A store such as hers is so much the fabric of life in this county," says Flint. "We are lucky that it has survived this long, from a historical viewpoint. I am delighted she is staying open."

A story of county life

The story of Yates Market is not just the story of a family owning a business over four generations, Flint said.

"In many ways, her story tells the story of life in this county," Flint said. "We are talking about the farmers, the merchants and the consumers. She was the local transition from cattle to meat on the table. She was the mercantile."

Yates Market is the oldest continuously running business on Main Street, said Janet Kusterer, who writes about happenings on Main Street for this paper, and who has authored a book on Ellicott City history. Its role in the history of the town has been significant.

"We really try to stay away from the chains, and particularly chain grocery stores," she said. "So to have a small grocery store on Main Street for all this time has been really special."

The business has been a part of Thanksgiving at the Kusterer house for at least a decade. The holiday would not be the same without the homemade sage sausage she gets each year from Yates Market, made from a generations-old family recipe.

"I am glad that tradition is going to continue," Kusterer said. "She makes it herself and you ask her what is in it and she just smiles at you. I am glad she can stay open in any capacity."

Ellicott City resident Frances Mason, 90, has been a customer of the market for decades. Jacobs' grandfather used to deliver groceries to her home driving a horse-drawn cart.

"I am not a supermarket person," she said. "I think it makes a big difference in Ellicott City, having one of the Yates' there to wait on you and give you all the service on earth you want. I think it is really important that they continue."

user comments (1)

user kay2838 says...

Historic Ellicott City residents--and beyond--were very happy to read this article. When we saw that the store was boarded up, our minds raced to conclusion--that it had been sold and would be re-configured and much history lost. So, this is good news. I have also spoken to Betty Jacobs and create a new blog feature, paralleling this information, but with a different slant. http://awalkintothepast.blogspot.com Kay Weeks

Posted 1:14 PM, 02.14.10 | Permalink