Opening of food mart reveals a familiar face
Hershel Patel's store offers new conveniences.
By CAMILLE C. SPENCER
Published March 4, 2007
HERNANDO - Along a curvy stretch of State Road 200, across from an old computer repair shop, Hershel Patel became a local celebrity.
Patel, round-faced and quick to flash a smile, bought a Chevron gas station in 1994. Locals stopping by for gas and a pack of cigarettes loved his mild manner and chatty demeanor.
But in 2003, Patel got sick and sold the Chevron. New owners changed it to a Liberty. Everyone wondered when Patel would return.
Now he has made his comeback.
On Feb. 21 Patel opened Hershel's Food Mart, right next to the Liberty. Hershel's is at SR 200 and McDonald Lane, about 4 miles north of U.S. 41.
The store already is drawing in about 200 customers a day. Locals missed the hometown feel Patel gives his businesses. And after four years, they missed Patel.
"We all wanted to see him come back," said Tim Mowrey, sipping a Styrofoam cup of coffee Thursday morning at the store. "People were going, 'Where's Hershel?' "
* * *
Patel is 59. He was born in India, where he met his wife of 27 years, Mohini.
A shot at better opportunities led Patel to New York for business school and later to Chicago. There, he took a job as a quality control inspector for a commercial equipment company.
By then, Patel's family had moved to Florida. He missed them and was ready for a change and a chance to work for himself.
He came from a family of business owners, so he called a cousin who ran a motel in New Port Richey and asked him to help find a business Patel could run.
At the time, the Circle K in Hernando was closing. Patel bought the building and changed it to a Chevron gas station. He admits he knew nothing about running a gas station or convenience store.
Sometimes, joked Doris Bree, who was a Chevron clerk, it showed.
"When he first started," she said, "he didn't know what a cash register was."
* * *
Patel got sick in 2003. He declined to elaborate on his health problems.
When Patel got well, he built the red-and-white food mart from scratch on a vacant lot. Unlike other minimarts, there are no gas pumps outside Patel's store.
Inside, the usual products are on sale at the store, which is open from 5 a.m. to 10 p.m. every day except Sunday, when the hours are 6 a.m. to 9 p.m.
So what's the big draw?
Customers say the in-house post office is one attraction. It's a convenience Patel thought would help older folks who didn't want to drive to the post office in town.
Some love the hometown atmosphere. They stop by to talk weather and politics.
"This is all for the community," Patel said. "I give them good service."
Others come just for the food.
Unlike other convenience stores, where a rotisserie of processed foods grow stale as the seconds pass, Patel makes his fried treats fresh every day.
Among the lunch menu's items: chicken tenders for $4.29 and french fries for $2.99.
Bree, 71, makes biscuits and gravy for the breakfast menu.
The food is so popular that her greeting is standard for everyone who walks in.
"What are we going to eat today?"