The West Stockbridge PUBLIC MARKET is the perfect small town store... especially at Christmastime.
The West Stockbridge PUBLIC MARKET on the morning of the 2024 Winter Solstice.
For the start of my work-week on the night of December 20th-21st I had a simple and straightforward assignment-- one trailer, one store... just make sure I get it there by 10:30PM. I finished early, took a nap in the store's parking lot, and then headed back west at 4:00AM to beat the morning Boston traffic. With only one trailer instead of the usual tandem set, I was free to take a rare little side trip through West Stockbridge, the tiny Massachusetts border town where a full generation ago I had spent many seasons of toil operating a restaurant and gourmet take-out store.
Compared to the larger and better-known Berkshire power centers-- Lenox, Stockbridge, and Great Barrington-- West Stockbridge is a quiet and unassuming little village. (West Stockbridge DID, however, recently come to wide renown as the source of the 74' Norway spruce that became the 2024 Rockefeller Center Christmas tree. See HERE for the tale.)
As I navigated the main thoroughfare in the pre-dawn darkness on this Winter Solstice morning, West Stockbridge looked pretty much the same as I always remembered. The whole town was still peacefully asleep... safely distant, it seemed, from all the tumult in this world. The only living soul up and about this early was a man whom many might consider the town's unofficial mayor-- Bernie Fallon, who was energetically shoveling the walk in front of the store he and his wife Isabel proudly own...
The West Stockbridge PUBLIC MARKET.
Bernie Fallon in his natural element.
I slowed to a stop and lowered my window. "Hey Bernie! Got any breakfast sandwiches?"
"Just made'em!" he cheerfully replied. "Want me to bring one out for you?" Bernie is a genuinely kind and thoughtful man.
"Nah, lemme park this rig behind the bank. I'll be right in."
As I enjoyed my all-too-rare hot meal while out on the road-- a delicious egg-and-sausage sandwich and freshly-brewed dark roast-- Bernie filled me in about his (and his family's) long history with the PUBLIC MARKET.
In the late 1920s, Bernie's grandfather and great-uncle operated a meat wagon that delivered products to West Stockbridge, Richmond, neighboring New York State, and other nearby locations. The Fallon Brothers eventually purchased the property at 8 Main Street in West Stockbridge and opened a store. This market, known as FALLON'S, quickly become a popular destination for quality meats, produce, and groceries. The brothers eventually sold the building and the business to the Gerdins, a father-son butcher team, who ran their shop for fifteen years. Then a couple from California owned and operated it for a year and then sold it to Ann and Michael Skorput... who happened to be Bernie Fallon's mother and step-father. Bernie took over management of the Public Market in 2003, purchased it from the Skorputs in 2006, and then sold it in 2010.
And then Bernie hit the highway. Maybe it's a small-town thing... maybe especially bright and energetic hometown lads tend to harbor an irrepressible desire stretch their legs and see the world... you know, like George Bailey had planned to do before fate intervened--
Unlike George Bailey, Bernie managed to escape his hometown. Armed with a degree in Business & Marketing, he ventured far afield from his native West Stockbridge, all the way to Phoenix. Good thing, because there he found his soul-mate Isabel. Mr. and Mrs. Fallon eventually returned to the Berkshires and in 2019 purchased a small-town store...
...not the West Stockbridge PUBLIC MARKET, but rather LOEB'S FOODTOWN in the neighboring village of Lenox.
Leo and Marion Loeb ("lobe") opened LOEB'S FOODTOWN in 1959 and ran it until 1968 when they sold it to Earl Albert... the same Earl Albert who had recently put West Stockbridge on the map by donating that 74-foot Norway spruce for the Rockefeller's 2024 Christmas tree in honor of his late wife.
With his accumulated business acumen and prior experience operating the PUBLIC MARKET, Bernie --with the indispensable assistance of Isabel-- modernized LOEB'S while keeping the original name.
And then the PUBLIC MARKET itself became available.
Bernie proved that one can come home again by purchasing the PUBLIC MARKET in early 2024. He and Isabel presently work 80-hour weeks running both stores... and to all accounts and appearances absolutely love doing so.
As of late I've been parking my double-rig at the state line and bicycling through the Berkshires when the weather was conducive to doing so. And I've been stopping at the PUBLIC MARKET for their famously fantastic sandwiches and chatting up Bernie from time to time. I vaguely knew of him two decades ago when we both ran small businesses in town, but until a just few days ago I never knew his amazing story.
All in all, that was one hell of a breakfast.
* * * * * * * * * * * *
As their customers well know, Bernie and Isabel are deeply committed to serving the communities of Lenox, West Stockbridge, and the rest of the region, as evidenced by their holiday hours. If you discover on Christmas morning that you've forgotten to purchase, say, the cream for your coffee or enough aluminum foil to cook your roast, both LOEB'S FOODTOWN and the PUBLIC MARKET are open Christmas Day from 7:00AM to Noon.
Bernie is the author of GOODOLOGY, a unique "self-help" book (for lack of a more flattering category-name) that is available on Amazon.
Last summer I took a break from bicycling on the PUBLIC MARKET's park bench and chatted with ElizabethD., a septuagenarian former town selectwoman and current justice of the peace whom I knew from decades before. While talking about Bernie she told me with a giggle, "I used to change his diapers!" When I later reported this to Bernie, he laughed and said, "If everyone who claims to have changed my diapers actually had, this town would be a lot bigger."
The Town of West Stockbridge, Massachusetts is definitely a better (if not bigger) place because of Bernie Fallon.
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