Stewart’s Shop Selling Part of the Company

The family-owned convenience store chain is planning to sell the family's 60% stake in the company back to its employees.

Stewart's Shop is one of the Hudson Valley's most popular convenience stores for good reason, not only do they offer customers great coffee, snacks, milk, and ice cream, they have some of the friendliest staff members. If you frequent your neighborhood Stewart's Shop you are well aware that the friendly faces behind the counter almost always have a smile on their faces and something nice to say.

Everyone Knows Your Name

Over the years we've spent a lot of mornings in various Stewart's Shops across the Hudson Valley and at almost every store the person behind the counter is on a first-name basis with a bunch of the customers that come in. We need more of that in the world, right?....LOL! Stewarts puts being a friendly face and doing the right thing first and it starts at the top of the family-owned company.

Employees Own Part of Stewart Shops

Since the mid-1940s the Dake family has owned and operated Stewart's Shops all across New York and Vermont, with 3,700 employees at over 350 Stewarts Shops. Generation after generation of Dake's has continued to not only grow and expand as a company but also give its employees the opportunity to own a piece of the company. The company has long believed in profit sharing with its employees with a program called the Employee Stock Ownership Plan (ESOP).

Family Owned Stewart's Selling More of Company to Employees

The ESOP plan gives any Stewart's employees who work more than 1,000 hours a year the chance to own stock in the company according to Wikipedia. Currently, almost 40% of the company is employee-owned and this will increase in the next few years as the Dake family has announced new plans to give employees the chance to its 60% stake in the company. According to the Albany Business Review, the Dake family plans to slowly sell its 60% stake in the company back to its employees over a 20-year divestiture plan.

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If all goes as planned the Dake family will retire once the plan is finished and the company will be completely owned by its employees.