Town & Country Food Market history

In 1940, John Nakata, Jitsuzo’s eldest son, built the Eagle Harbor Market on the site of his father’s barber shop and family home.

However, after the war began in 1941, the Nakata families were taken to internment camps along with all other Japanese Americans in the Northwest, and the market was sold.

Town & Country Markets Inc. is a regional, locally owned and operated, independent retail grocery company that began in 1957.

In 1966 Andrew (Andy) Perlinski, the son of a grocer, followed in his father’s footsteps and started Town & Country Foods in Livingston, Montana.

In 1970 a new store was built on North 19th Avenue to replace the original two stores.

It opened its Ballard Market in 1985 and the Shoreline store in 1990, followed a year later by a Greenwood location, which closed in 2012. It wouldn’t launch its second location for another 17 years, in 1974, which eventually became the Poulsbo Market Place.

In 1985, the company opened its first store on the east side of Puget Sound – Ballard Market, a block north of Northwest Market Street on 15th Avenue Northwest in Ballard.

Andy’s sons, Jerry and Jim, purchased the family business from their father and mother, Bernice in 1986.

In 1988 Town & Country Foods formed an Employee Stock Ownership Plan (ESOP) and the ESOP purchased Jim’s interest in Town & Country Foods.

In 1990, Central Market Shoreline opened, initially as Shoreline Price Chopper.

In 1991, Greenwood Market opened as Greenwood Price Chopper.

Its early adoption of organic and specialty produce derived from employee proposals and presaged efforts as early as 1995 to build a green business, a first for the county and the state.

In 1990, Central Market Shoreline opened, initially as Shoreline Price Chopper. It underwent a major expansion and reopened as a Central Market in January 2000 with a 10,000-square-foot produce market, 52-foot-long meat service counter and live shellfish tanks.

In 2004, the company’s third Central Market opened in Mill Creek north of Seattle in the new Mill Creek Town Center.

Town and Country Foods expanded in 2007 by opening a grocery store in Livingston.

A third Town & Country Foods store, located in Bozeman at 1611 South 11th Avenue opened in March 2010.

In 2013 the ESOP purchased Jerry Perlinski’s interest in Town & Country Foods and is now 100% Employee Owned!

In 2015, the company added Town & Country Lakemont to its portfolio with the purchase of a former Matthews store.