By Santiago Esparza, for MLive Detroit

DETROIT, MI – Joe Gappy walks through Gigante Prince Valley Supermarket fist-bumping employees, high-fiving some customers while speaking in serviceable Spanish to others shopping at the 25,000 square-foot store.

He hands out candy suckers to children, walks the store to keep an eye on trends and possible problems and marvels at how far the store has come in the 37 years his family has been in the grocery business on Michigan Avenue east of Livernois in southwest Detroit.

The store is one of several in southwest Detroit that each employs dozens of workers from the neighborhood, has undergone dramatic renovations and expanded offerings without government loans, tax breaks or other such help.

“We have soul,” the 44-year-old Gappy said while sharing a picture of his 2 ½ year old daughter with a mom and her child. “Customers at big grocers don’t know the store managers. People who shop here know me and my dad (John Gappy) and chat with us.”

The store features a mini post office, a bakery area in which wedding cakes can be ordered, a restaurant, cellular phone payment center, makes its own tortillas and tortilla chips daily and even grills chicken and rib meals for sale.

“Either you grow or you are going to die,” Gappy said, noting a new oven will arrive this month to double the cake output at the store. “I’m always up thinking about what we are going to do next.”

Independent grocers like Gappy have been a mainstay in Detroit for decades, said Ed Deeb, chairman of the Michigan Food and Beverage Association.

Deeb said there are more than 80 large independent stores in the city and the stores are investing in their businesses to offer more products at competitive prices.

“There are more products; better products and at cheaper prices,” Deeb said. “That is what is helping.”

Other stores of similar size that recently upgraded their locations include Acteca Market on Central Avenue, E&L Super Mercado on West Vernor, Honeybee Market on Bagley and Garden Fresh Marketplace, located just a few blocks west of Gappy's store.

For years, these stores have been a lifeline in southwest Detroit, offering Latino food products, fresh produce and hiring employees who live close enough to walk to work.

"Lately, the independent stores are improving vastly," said Ed Deeb, chairman of the Michigan Food and Beverage Association. "They are competing with big stores better than before. They are a real credit to the food industry."

Gappy is happy that Whole Foods opened a store in Detroit's Midtown area this Spring. But he questions why a corporation with 200 stores across the country received more than $4 million in local and state tax incentives and grants.

When Gappy’s family invested tens of thousands of dollars in their store, they received no help from the government or tax incentives.

“It is good that Whole Foods opened in the city,” Gappy said. “But they did not need tax breaks. None of us (local, independent grocers who expanded) got help. They shouldn’t either.”

Southwest Detroit native Rose Marzouq now lives Downriver but comes back to her old neighborhood to shop for Latino products but also in search of prices she said are better than at big stores in the suburbs.

“Oh my God, I can go to E&L and get the meat so much cheaper than Kroger or Meijer or even Wal-Mart,” Marzouq said. “The meat is fresh, it’s not over-priced and I can also pick up items like tortillas made that day. It is worth the trip.”

Santiago Esparza is a Detroit-based freelance writer.

Here is a list of some of the stores in southwest Detroit: