Mirror staff

   Bristol Farms, an El Segundo-based gourmet and specialty food retailer, has taken over the grocery store space in the Brentwood Mart and will open for business in early September.

   It opened its first store in Palos Verdes in 1982 and now has eight stores -- in Rolling Hills, South Pasadena, Manhattan Beach, Westlake Village, Long Beach, Newport Beach, Mission Viego and, most recently, Hollywood, having taken over the Gourmet Chalet. The Brentwood store will be its ninth. It plans on opening another dozen stores in Los Angeles and Orange Counties. Each store has an average staff of 200 "owner/partners," who own shares of the company.

   The company was founded by Irv Gronsky, who said, "We always wondered why can’t the stores be more interesting, more fun, more attractive. We could see there was a niche for the old-fashioned high service store -- we used expressions like the ‘unsupermarket.’"

   Gronsky and his wife are longtime residents of Bristol Avenue in Brentwood, but, contrary to Bristol Farms’ own corporate profile,

   Gronsky did not name his company for his street, but rather for a British ship he admired.

   Kevin Davis, who lives in Anaheim Hills with his wife and seven children is President, Chairman and CEO of Bristol Farms. He joined the company in May, 1996, as Executive Vice President and General Manager and was named President and made a member of the board three months later. He previously worked at Ralph’s Grocery Company for 21 years.

   The Brentwood Mart at 26th Street and San Vicente Boulevard has long been a popular gathering place for Brentwood and Santa Monica residents. Resembling a large, rambling and somewhat daft vintage red barn, it houses a collection of small shops and a Post Office, as well as the grocery store.

   Its small bookstore, the Book Nook, which recently closed, and sunny interior courtyards were big draws to writers in the neighborhood. Today, at lunchtime, the courtyard and the adjacent parking lot, are inevitably crowded with regulars, some of whom have been coming to the Mart most of their lives.