Back in Business : Rattled but Not Down, Fillmore Grocer Expands Enterprise

Like thousands of others, Jess Segovia’s livelihood was wiped out by the Northridge earthquake.

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He not only lost $50,000 in perishable groceries, but his 4,000-square-foot Fillmore Market was condemned.

Unlike many others, though, Segovia spurned government assistance.

Instead, he turned to his retirement funds and savings. He restored his 83-year-old market and had it up and running within three months.

But he didn’t stop there.

As other downtown merchants packed up and left, Segovia took over their shuttered or dwindling businesses and expanded them.

“I’m not the type of person to wait for things to happen,” Segovia said. “I accept things as they are and I try to make the best out of it.”

A year after the quake, the grocer is operating a Mexican restaurant and a billiard and ice cream parlor.

The Texas native credited his accomplishments to dedication and years of savings.

“Work, work and work and saving, saving and saving, that’s my way of living,” Segovia said.

Segovia has always known hard work--as a child, he helped his farm worker father pick lemons in the Santa Paula fields.

Likewise, Segovia’s wife, Alice, also the child of a farm worker, now manages the restaurant. Together for 32 years, they have raised four children who help them run the growing collection of family businesses.

Segovia does not seem to focus on the profits from his growing empire. It’s the work that counts, he said.

He is committed to working 14- to 18-hour days, seven days a week and committed to spending as little as possible.

“Physical work does not scare me; it’s actually good. The more I work, the better I sleep and the healthier I feel,” Segovia, 48, said. “But it’s the mental work that is scary. Even though I’m a strong person, sometimes I wear down wondering if I ever will be able to save again or take a vacation.”

As Segovia cuts meat at the market, serves coffee at the ice cream parlor and buses tables at the restaurant, the people in the close-knit community bemusedly watch.

“Jess is a role model for the people in this city and it’s not because of luck--it’s because of his hard work,” said Dale Crockett, president of the Fillmore Chamber of Commerce. “He is a dynamo and I wish we had more merchants like him.”

Segovia, who managed several other grocery stores before buying the Fillmore Market nine years ago, does not take his accomplishments for granted. For him, expanding was the only way to survive after the earthquake, he said.

Before the quake, the market was flourishing and Segovia employed six family members full time and three part-time employees.

Since the quake, business has decreased by nearly 30% and Segovia has been able to keep only two full-time and two part-time employees, he said.

“It got to the point where we all were part time and I still could not pay everyone,” Segovia said. “I was really worried that we would lose everything, that the entire family would be without a job.”

That’s when a neighboring shopkeeper asked Segovia if he wanted to buy a combined billiard and ice cream parlor that had been closed since the earthquake.

Although he had no cash to purchase the parlor, Segovia knocked out a deal that allows him to lease the facility and its equipment with the option to buy them later.

He renamed the place “Segovia’s Billiard & Ice Cream Parlor,” hired his brother and sister-in-law to operate it, and since July he has been making a profit.

Likewise, when the owners of a Mexican restaurant decided to get rid of the business, Segovia again leased the business with the option to buy.

With the help of a daughter-in-law, Alice Segovia has been operating the restaurant now named “Segovia’s Hide Away.”

The Segovias have added other personal touches to both establishments.

The barren restaurant walls have been painted with murals of colorful beaches, palm trees and golf courses, and decked with Mexican art and crafts.

Likewise, they mounted a large color television on the wall of the billiard parlor and added tacos and burritos to the parlor’s menu.

Although Segovia is optimistic about the future, he said he is far from having a sense of financial security. The family’s annual vacation to Mexico has been postponed indefinitely and Segovia still needs $100,000 to bring Fillmore Market up to earthquake code.

But with faith in the community, in his family and in hard work, Segovia believes the family enterprises will be successful.