DETROIT (WXYZ) — For nearly 70 years, Honey Bee Market has offered a taste of home to its customers in Southwest Detroit.
The area, also known as Mexicantown, is home to the largest concentration of Hispanics in Southeastern Michigan.
"One of the things that brings us together is the food and so many generations. That's how it all started was bringing foods the foods that was hard to find to a community that needed the food and was looking for a little bit of home," owner Tammy Alfaro-Koehler said.
Alfaro-Koehler inherited the family business and remembers working at the grocery store, which was much smaller when she was a kid.
“I wasn’t very tall for a cashier and I used to get on a milk crate,” she joked.
Hear more from Alfaro-Koehler during out full interview with her in the video player below:
Her grandparents started Honey Bee in 1956 in a little storefront. Today, customers flood into a much larger building to grab fresh produce and ready-made meals from the kitchen.
“Reminds you of grandma’s cooking," Alfaro-Koehler said.
She and her staff view patrons as family and feel a responsibility to take care of them and fully stock and price their items accordingly.
"In our culture, even though it's family friends, we call them tia and tios, which is aunt and uncles even though they’re not actually blood they are to us. They’re family. That’s important because food brings us all together. Food brings us to gather in happy times, that we’re celebrating people’s birthdays, their job promotions, or sad times where we lose someone that we love but it always unites us and brings us all together, the food does" said Alfaro-Koehler.
Her hope is that the market feels like a place that embraces that unity.
Honey Bee has also employed families who've worked there for decades like kitchen chef Brian Lara-Romeros. He's one of many siblings to join the market family.
"It makes me feel great that I'm a part of it," Lara-Romero said. "It makes me feel great to know every little thing counts for the community of course."
The recipes he learned from his parents are a huge hit with customers who line up daily for lunch.
"I'm first generation, so to me, it gives me a lot of pride to know that they came here so we can have a better life, that we can live our live and enjoy our life and make our family even better and make our community better and the areas we live in better," Lara-Romero said.
For Alfaro-Koehler, that's what Hispanic Heritage Month is all about: taking the time to celebrate who they are and where they've come.
"We are always busy every day in life, but it means a chance for us to celebrate for a month, to educate people on what sacrifices we made to come here. And I know it was my grandparents that came here, Brian, it's his parents that came here, but the sacrifice, the American dream that we came here and to work hard to get to that American Dream," Aldaro-Koehler said.
