Residents recall life before Bashas’ as grocer celebrates 10 years in Maricopa

For many of Maricopa’s early residents, a trip to the grocery store required some planning.

Those who commuted to work picked up necessities on the way home from the office, while others packed up coolers and ice blocks for weekend shopping trips to Casa Grande, Chandler or Ahwatukee.

The Maricopa Mercantile – later called Mayfair Market – offered a nearby solution for a few items, but many families bought in bulk, stocking up on essentials from Costco.

“There was no place locally to buy anything substantial,” said Brent Murphree, former vice mayor and longtime resident.

But all of that changed 10 years ago today when family-owned grocery store chain Bashas’ opened its doors in Maricopa. The spacious store located in the newly developed Maricopa Fiesta shopping center on North John Wayne Parkway near Smith Enke Road offered residents long-desired access to high-quality food, fresh produce and nearly any necessity minutes from home.

“I will say that it was nothing short of a godsend,” Murphree said.

Edward “Trey” Basha, president and CEO of Bashas’ Family of Stores, said his company opened a store in Maricopa simply because he knew the community wanted one and management was “very aware” that residents didn’t have a grocery store nearby.

“More and more, Maricopa was becoming part of metro Phoenix,” Basha said. “All of those transplanted customers missed having a Bashas’ nearby, so we followed them to Maricopa.”

As the store celebrates 10 years in the community, so does the shopping center it calls home.

Maricopa Fiesta shopping center opened for business in 2004 and was acquired by a new owner in 2005, said Alan Zell, president of Zell Commercial Real Estate Services, which manages the shopping center.

“We didn’t do the original lease up on the center, but on the transition, I believe it was 100 percent occupied,” Zell said. “Being the only supermarket anchored in a newer retail development in town, it really had a lot of interest because of how everybody saw Maricopa’s potential growth.”

Today the shopping center has three vacancies, but also retains a number of original tenants including Subway, Orbitel Communications, Great Clips, Ultimate Spine Center and DC Dental Group.

Two of those original occupants are Mike and Tonya Thompson, owners of Water and Ice. They opened their store two weeks before Bashas’.

Mike Thompson said he saw a sign on an empty lot that would become Maricopa Fiesta shopping center and knew it would be a great location to open his store.

His wife Tonya, whose family has lived in the Maricopa area since 1975, said the idea to open a Water and Ice store seemed practical since they were still traveling to Chandler to purchase water.

“We knew the area was growing, and we just wanted to be a part of something,” she said. “We just knew it was an opportunity.”

Nearly 10 years later, the Thompsons have weathered the economic decline and expanded their offerings to include fax and copy services, ice cream cakes and water delivery.