Pacific Market in New Hands

Mar-Val Food Stores of Lodi takes over "Sebastopol's Grocery Store"

Some of us still call it “Fiesta,” 15 years after it was re-named Pacific Market. Ten years ago, the Silveira and Mohar families sold Pacific Market to Vasu Narayanan, a San Rafael businessman and owner of Oceana Market in Pacifica. The families continued to be involved in running the market. Now, Narayanan has sold the Pacific Market locations in Sebastopol and Santa Rosa to Mar-Val Food Stores.

Today, the Sebastopol store’s cashiers were dealing with a new checkout system, which the new owners had put in place the previous day.

Mar-Val Food Stores, with corporate offices in Lodi, CA, is a family-run chain of grocery store with locations in Willows, Groveland and Colfax, among others in California. They also own a store in Glen Ellen.

The CEO of Mar-Val is Mark Kidd and his son, Tyler Kidd, will be responsible for the two Pacific Market locations in Sebastopol and Santa Rosa. Casey Rodacker, the son of President Steve Rodacker, will also be responsible for the newly acquired stores.

Reached by phone, Tyler Kidd said that he didn’t expect any major changes in the Sebastopol store. “It’s a great store in a great community,” he said. “The team members are fantastic.” He said that most of that team will stay in place with local store managers, but that he and Casey Rodacker would be “heavily involved in management of the stores,” although they will not relocate to this area.

“Our fathers have been running the company for 40 years,” said Kidd. “It’s an opportunity for Steve and I to show what we can do.”