MONTGOMERY TWP. – Around 6:45 a.m. Sunday morning, more than 1,000 people stood outside awaiting the opening of a brand new Wegmans store. The new staff stood inside, accumulating near the front doors around a wooden vegetable crate makeshift stage. When the Wegmans rooster, built into the wall by the front of the store at the produce section, crowed at 7 a.m., the store manager Keith Grierson began a call and response Wegmans chant. When they finished spelling Wegmans, simultaneously employees began disassembling the stage, other employees bolted to their respective departments and the public entered. ‘We started construction on this store last October,’ Grierson said. ‘After over a year of construction and prep it’s so great to watch our employees see what they’ve help to build.’ Once a Boscov’s department store at the Montgomery Mall, the 126,000-square foot grocery store includes a restaurant/bar called ‘The Pub’ among many other specialty departments. ‘The Pub’ in this store boasts a brand new menu with different items than other Wegmans’ restaurants. Also unique to ‘The Pub’ is a Pottstown Sly Fox Brewing Company beer called ‘Sly Ride’ that is not available elsewhere. Specialty departments include a deli, a coffee shop, seafood section, cheese shop, floral department, hot foods buffet, bakery, sushi, sub shop and an organic salad bar. Grierson said the store hired around 500 local employees, including Teddy Truong, a 2006 North Penn graduate who started working for Wegmans at the Warrington store then moved to Northborough, Massachusetts to help open a new store. Now he’s back living in Lansdale and is the Team Leader in Olde World Cheese at the Montgomeryville store. On Sunday, the store’s $60,000 affinage cheese case saw its first day in action with four employees distributing fresh cheese samples from the humidity-controlled, open-air case. Troung said employees will man the case from 8 a.m. until 10 p.m., offering samples and he encouraged curious customers to ask if they want to try an expensive cheese before they purchase. ‘We will open up a cheese for a customer to try,’ Troung said. ‘I understand that people want to know what they’re getting before they spend $20 a pound on a cheese.’ Around 11 a.m. the cheese department also did a wheel breaking of an 80-pound block of Parmigiano-Reggiano cheese. Troung said this allows the cheese to break at its natural crevices, which cause the amino acid Tyrosine to be released. ‘Tyrosine is known to help reduce stress and improve mood,’ Troung said. ‘So cheese can really make you happy.’ Another unique feature is a seafood steamer, where employees will steam your clams, mussels, lobster or shrimp while you shop so it is ready to take and eat when you finish. A smell of garlic and herd dusted shrimp wafted from the steamer around 7:30 a.m. Sunday. Customer Lisa Evans, of Blue Bell, came to check out the store Sunday morning because she enjoyed the store near where her daughter lives. ‘The produce and the colors right when you walk in and everything looks fresh,’ Evans said. ‘The meats and the selection made me anxious to see what this store offered.’ The store will be open 24 hours a day.
