At Joe V’s, we are proud of our hard-working partners. One partner who really goes above and beyond is Onofre, known as Ono, who will be managing our 9th store in Pasadena. We sat down with him recently to hear about his story, his tips for Joe V’s shoppers, and more!

Ono is one of the original Joe V’s crew – coming over from H-E-B to help start Store #1, 8 years ago. Ono remembers that it was “a scary leap of faith,” but that the store quickly became “a place the community really gravitated to.” Since then, Ono has worked in 3 other Joe V’s stores and is currently back at Joe V’s #1, until he moves to the Pasadena store.

“I’m very thankful for the opportunity that I’ve been given and the ability to impact other partner’s lives. It’s a really fast paced environment, and it’s a lot of hard work, but it’s so rewarding at the end, when you see all we’ve accomplished at the stores and how great our prices are,” said Ono.

Ono’s no stranger to hard work and hard times – last year, his house took in several feet of water during Hurricane Harvey. Joe V spoke to us about Ono’s dedication during this time; “The whole time Ono was working out the logistics of his house, and how to repair it and take care of his family, he never missed a day of work. And when he was off work, he would still be on the phone with his stores. Talk about dedication, talk about ownership. That exemplifies it to me. That’s what makes him the leader that he is today.”

Thanks to his amazing leadership, Joe V knew that Ono would be the right person to open up the Pasadena store, especially since Ono lives in Pasadena. “I’m really excited and honored to be chosen to open up a store for my community,” Ono told us. “It’s going to be an awesome store, and we’re going to go in there and work hard, and do everything we can to take care of our customers every day. I feel the ownership even more there, because it’s my community.”

Ono’s favorite smart buy at Joe V’s? “I’m partial to our bone-in ribeyes when they’re on sale – no one else sells them at the prices we do!” Ono also raved about Joe V’s fresh produce, explaining that “we typically sell our entire truckload of produce in one day, and then fresh produce gets brought in the next morning. From a quality and freshness perspective, you can’t get any fresher than that.”

At the end of the day, Ono is proud to work for Joe V’s, commenting that “customers appreciate us in their community, because we are providing fresh foods at crazy prices that we can support our families with.” A true leader, partner, and owner – we are proud to have Ono at Joe V’s.