Steve and Lori Korte were, in their own minds, still at least a few years away from retirement when their phone rang in January.

With offers on the table, Steve Korte suddenly faced the option of walking away from Korte’s and Widmer’s supermarkets, the independent, family-run, St. Paul grocery stores he had nurtured across his 45 years in the business.

“We’re both only 60,” said Steve Korte on Wednesday, sitting in a sparse office above Korte’s Market on Randolph Avenue. “We were going to hang onto it for another two or three years, was the plan. And then this came up.”

By “this,” Steve Korte meant purchase offers from Neil Oxendale, the 40-year-old owner of Oxendale’s Market on Dodd Road in West St. Paul and 34th Avenue South in South Minneapolis.

By mid-November, the Kortes expect to close on the sales of both markets and leave the grocery business behind, at least for a few weeks. They’ve volunteered to help the Oxendales out over the holidays.

“We’re going to keep our focus on ‘the neighborhood store,’ just as Steven and Lori have done for so long,” Oxendale said on Wednesday. “It seemed like a good fit there — one family to the next.”

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By New Year’s, however, the Kortes — who raised two daughters in the business — will be fully retired.

On St. Clair Avenue, Widmer’s, which is celebrating its 60th birthday, will retain the longstanding Widmer’s name it’s held since it opened on Nov. 1, 1958. Steve Korte, who began working there in 1973, purchased that store in 1993.

Korte’s — which was Rooney’s grocery in the 1960s and a Knowlan’s grocery beginning in 1971 — will become an Oxendale’s. Steve Korte purchased the store in 2000.

Beyond a new name and top brass, at least a few other changes are likely, though many may occur behind the scenes. During an interview, Steve Korte threw up a cheer of surprise for himself after learning he had successfully shared a phone number with a reporter by text message.

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Real World Economics: Presidents have much less power over economy than people think “Give me a calculator and a checkbook and I can run a grocery store,” said Steve Korte, with a mixture of pride and mild self-recrimination, “but now there’s so much you can do with technology.”

“We’re not getting any younger,” added payroll manager, co-owner, vice president and bookkeeper Lori Korte, dressed in a festive pumpkin sweater, an orange necklace and other Halloween regalia. “So we thought, let the new guy take over. Out with the old and in with the new!”

SEVEN-DAY PER WEEK U.S. POST OFFICE

Yet much will likely stay the same. The seven-day-per-week U.S. postal center inside Korte’s is likely staying put, said store employees on Wednesday.

Oxendale said he was 28 years old when he bought his Minneapolis store 11 years ago. He purchased his West St. Paul store four years ago. His parents and brother work in the company’s administrative offices in Minneapolis.

“Probably our short-list would be freshening things up, painting, seeing if we can find some more energy-efficient casings,” Oxendale said. “We do like to work with local product vendors. We’ll be squeezing more product into the stores.”

Longtime customers and employees say they wish the best for the Kortes, and for the two grocery stores.

Barb Bean, a service center manager at Korte’s, said she had spent 37 years in the building — 18 with the Kortes and almost 20 with Knowlan’s. The Kortes, she said, were good employers.

“They’ve been wonderful to work for — just very caring, willing to work with you if you need time off,” Bean said. “They make it fun.”

On Wednesday, 83-year-old Noelyn Porter of Highland Park pushed a cart through Korte’s relatively-narrow food aisles.

“I make a point of coming here because I think it’s a great family-owned business,” Porter said. “It’s not a big corporation. It’s low-key. I can come here and shop in a small amount of time.”

That’s not likely to change for customers, but there are changes ahead for the Kortes, such as more free time.

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“Everything worked out,” Steve Korte said. “I loved the job. I love the work. I’m just tired of being the boss. Between the city and what they’ve done, and the competition, it’s getting harder and harder.”

What has the city done?

“I’m not going there,” said Steve Korte, waving away his own words with a momentary air of regret. “I’m not going to talk ill of anyone. But Neil’s young. He’s full of piss and vinegar and ready to go. He’s the age I was when I bought Widmer’s. He’s going to do it his way. I did it my way.”

Steve Korte recalled entering the business at a time when “big box” grocers like the Trader Joe’s down the street were non-existent and everything was family-run.

“It’s bittersweet,” Lori Korte said. “We weren’t ready. We weren’t quite ready. But you take the opportunity when it comes, because it might not come again. Every time people come up to us, we get teary-eyed.”