Stew Leonard Sr., the 93-year-old founder of the Stew Leonard’s supermarket chain, with locations on Long Island and Westchester County, died Wednesday at a New York hospital following a brief illness.
The store announced the senior Leonard’s passing Thursday afternoon on the store’s website and Facebook page, along with an obituary detailing his life and career.
“We are sad to announce that Stew Leonard Sr., the founder of Stew Leonard’s, passed away peacefully on April 26, 2023, at Lenox Hill Hospital in New York,” store officials said on Facebook.
The Leonard name became familiar to the public through the television commercials that featured Stew Leonard Jr. It promote a wholesome image that emphasized family, theirs and their customers’.
Connecticut Gov. Ned Lamont tweeted Thursday he was saddened to hear of Leonard’s passing.
“Stew founded an iconic Connecticut business that is more than a grocery store,” Lamont said, “it’s a place where thousands of families have created memories over several generations. My heart goes out to the entire Leonard family and everyone at Stew Leonard’s.”
A Westport resident, Leonard was born in Norwalk on Dec. 1, 1929. He is survived by his wife of 70 years, Marianne Guthman Leonard, and their four children, including Stew Leonard Jr., the company’s current CEO, as well as 13 grandchildren and 11 great-grandchildren.
Leonard was a graduate of Norwalk High School and of the University of Connecticut’s School of Agriculture. He first worked for his family’s dairy business at Clover Farms Dairy in Norwalk, a state-of-the-art dairy complete with a pasteurizing and bottling plant and fresh milk delivered daily by trucks with plastic cows on the front that “mooed” for the neighborhood children, according to the store. The mooing cow came to be associated with the grocery chain and were at the center of its advertising campaigns.
The chain delivered a fun shopping experience with lots of singing characters perched on high ledges throughout the store. It has been called “part grocery store, part amusement park.”
In December 1969, he opened Stew Leonard’s flagship Norwalk store, which at the time sold only eight items. The store became known as the “World’s Largest Dairy Store” by Ripley’s Believe It or Not and earned a place in the Guinness Book of World Records for having the highest dollar sales per square foot of selling space, according to the store.
While Stew Leonard’s remains family-owned, the business now operates seven store locations in Connecticut, New York and New Jersey. The company is run by Leonard Jr. with help from his siblings, Tom Leonard, Beth Leonard Hollis and Jill Leonard Tavello.
The Leonard family were no strangers to tragedy. On New Year’s Day, 1989, Kim Leonard and her husband Stew Leonard Jr. were at a family gathering in St. Maarten, when they lost sight of their 21-month-old son Stew Leonard III. The young child wandered into a pool and drowned. The Leonard family became water safety advocates. They decided they would reach kids more effectively with awareness efforts if they used a fun cartoon character as a spokesperson. They came up with Stewie the Duck, and published two books on water safety: Stewie the Duck Learns to Swim and Swimming Lessons with Stewie the Duck. In the books, Stewie must take swimming lessons and learn water safety procedures before he can swim with the big ducks.
A memorial service and burial for Stew Sr. will be private, and a celebration of life will be announced at a later date, according to the store.
