AGAWAM – Pajer Superette, a store specializing in homemade Italian dishes, has been in business since 1931 and continues to offer a traditional grocery atmosphere to the community.

Alfred Pajer, the store’s owner, told Reminder Publications his father Fred and mother Elisa founded the business – then named Pajer Bros. Quality Meat Market – on Columbus Avenue. The store moved to its current location at 400 Cooper St. in the 1950s.

“It was a small Italian market and they made everything back then,” he explained. “We still make most of the stuff. We still make our own sausage, our own lasagnes [and] our own macaroni ziti with broccoli.”  

The store also offers homemade tortellini and several brands of Italian imported products such as Napoli foods, which has been an offering at the store since it opened its doors, he noted.

His father worked for the business until he was 79 years old and his mother stopped working at the store when she was 95, Pajer said. She would work behind the cash register – which to this day is cash only – for three or four hours a day in her old age.

“When you take credit cards, we have to pay three percent to the credit card company,” he added. “Well, that means we have to go up three percent on everything. We try to keep it where our prices are lower.”

He added “word of mouth” about the store is the main way customers hear about the Italian specialty food shop. The business does not advertise or have a website.

“We’re very supportive of Agawam people that helped us through our whole generation of life, [as well as] Springfield people” Pajer said. “We have people coming in from everywhere.”

The business relies on frequent regular customers, he explained. In one instance, a pregnant woman called him from Pennsylvania asking to buy their homemade sausage.

“She made her father drive up from Pennsylvania to get our sausage,” he noted. “This is just [one] little crazy story that has happened.”

He added when he took over the business from his parents in the 1970s, Pajer Superette started expanding with new offerings such as take home dishes.

 “Everybody’s working now, so they stop and pick up prepared meals,” Pajer said.

The business also began offering grinder sandwiches with a whole loaf of Italian bread and more than a pound of meat, he added.

When Pajer and his wife retire from the business, Michael Grassetti, the store’s general manager plans to take over the store, Pajer said.

“He’s been here all his life – on and off since he was a kid,” he noted.   

They will continue in the future as a small traditional Italian market, Pajer explained.

“These little family owned stores – there’s no more around,” he added. “We have a few in Springfield, but nobody is going to work the hours that we do or do all the stuff that we do. Today you have a dairy mart on every corner or a Subway on every corner and I think that more people enjoy us [because when] they come in we know their name.”