Stew Leonard Sr., founder of a regional grocer, dies at 93

Stew Leonard Sr., who founded more than 50 years ago a dairy store that became a regional grocery powerhouse under his name, died Wednesday at a New York hospital after a brief illness. Leonard Sr. was 93 years old, according to his namesake company. Leonard Sr. first worked for his family’s dairy business in Norwalk, Connecticut. In the late 1960s, he realized that the milk delivery business was becoming a thing of the past, and so he decided to build a retail dairy store where children could watch milk being bottled while parents shopped in a farmer’s market atmosphere. In December 1969, he opened a 17,000-square-foot store carrying just eight items that eventually grew into a regional grocery chain.