About Southtown Health Foods
Southtown Health Foods is and always has been a family business. Yes its owned and operated by a family, and like so many other successful family businesses it has passed from one generation to the next and will most likely continue in that fashion for generations to come. But when we think about our business we like to think of family beyond our next of kin and move the concept out to the entire neighborhood. We have always seen our role to be the one store where people can come to get healthy food products, nutritional supplements and the knowledge needed to make the best choices when it comes to your personal health and well being.
It was our families matriarch Frieda Mahler who got it all started when in 1948 she purchased a small health food store in the Southtown neighborhood of Chicago at 63 rd and Halsted. After a nearly twenty year career as a wife, mother of five and private duty nurse Frieda bought the store from a friend who decided that running a retail store was not her cup of tea. Frieda however was enthused about the prospect of being able to apply her nursing and mothering skills in a meaningful way that would help people learn to eat sensibly and acquire healthier life skills.
Owning and operating a health food store was a real challenge but Frieda would not face the challenge alone, her husband Emil a cabinetmaker built the shelving and displays for the store and over the years all five of her children helped out by working at the store. Her natural instincts as a nurse and mother led her to embrace one successful mantra that to this day is the backbone of Southtown Health Foods, service, service, service. The store was relocated to the Beverly neighborhood in 1962 and moved once again to its current location at 2100 W. 95th street in 1990. Frieda was active in the business until her retirement in 1982.For the next twenty one years she enjoyed spending time with her family of five children, 24 grand children and 42 great grand children. Frieda and her husband Emil are clear proof that a healthier life style will prolong life as Frieda live to be 96 and Emil 99 years old.
Today Frieda's son Emil and his wife Mary Ann own the business and like his mother Emil has looked to his own children to help run the day to day store operations, currently daughter Kathryn Mahler-Speh (Katie) is the general manager of the store.