The friendship, and eventual business partnership, of Scott Teodoro and Chad Roy didn’t start off on the best foot. The two met when Roy married a longtime family friend of Teodoro’s.

“We didn’t like each other a whole lot at first,” Teodoro remembered. “But a few years into it, we became best friends, and after five years of business, I’d say we still are.”

For the past five years, Teodoro and Roy have co-owned and operated Harbor Greens, a specialty grocery market in Gig Harbor. Harbor Greens will open its second location in University Place in six weeks.

For Teodoro and Roy, opening the first store was a significant gamble.

Roy had worked at Tacoma Boys market for 13 years, and Teodoro worked in business management seven years ago, when they started to form their business plan.

“Over a lot of games of ping pong and hanging out and talking, we decided to take the biggest gamble of our lives,” Teodoro said.

Harbor Greens has been enough of a success to enable a second store across the Narrows bridges.

Roy said he believes that success has come from a focus on customer service, as well as its selection of local and organic food.

“That’s what we pride ourselves on,” he said. “Anything we can get local, that’s what we have.”

During the winter, the Harbor Greens buyers purchase produce from places such as California, but the store also has relationships with several nearby farms for fruit and vegetables, meat and other food.
Gig Harbor-area vendors have been a priority during the five years Harbor Greens has been open.

The store was the first retailer to offer Obelisco Estate wines and beer from 7 Seas Brewing Company, and it sells other local products, such as salad dressing from Gig Harbor’s Brittany Bay Gourmet and kettle corn from Fox Island.

“A lot of these little places that don’t make enough to sell to a Safeway or an Albertsons, they come find us,” Teodoro said. “We do lots of business with local small vendors – that’s half the fun of this business.”

When the Gig Harbor store opened, Teodoro and Roy told each other they would wait five years to assess their business before they considered another location. That time has passed, and the first place the partners looked was to University Place, Roy’s hometown.

Teodoro grew up in Gig Harbor, and they wanted another experience in a community they knew well.

The co-owners plan to devote time to both of their locations.

“(The new store) is close enough for us to be on hand to manage and meet customers and grow the business,” Teodoro said. “It was just a real organic fit.”

The new store is located on at the intersection of 27th Street and Bridgeport Way, between an AutoZone and a Walgreens. Teodoro and Roy are on track to open in the first week of March.

Teodoro said they’ll spend the next two weeks finishing the installation of equipment, and then they’ll spend February stocking food and hiring and training new employees.

Twenty-nine people work at the Gig Harbor store, and the University Place location will staff about 35, Teodoro said, including a few managers and buyers who will split time between both.

Jobs at the new store already have generated a lot of interest.

“We get 10 resumes a day on our desk,” Teodoro said.

Teodoro and Roy aren’t in any hurry to expand again, although they won’t rule out the possibility.

“We like a small feel, we like a local feel,” Teodoro said. “These stores are in our backyard, and there’s only two of us as owners, so there’s no third backyard right now.

“We don’t have a desire to take this thing global,” he added. “We have a lot of fun getting to know the employees and the customers, and you can’t do that with 10 stores.”