Before Virginia Pantry or Becky's Tea Café was a gleam in anybody's eye, there was Lukhard's Finer Foods on Libbie Avenue in Richmond. The Wilcoxes bought it in 1988 from Rawley Lukhard of Mechanicsville.

The Lukhard family owned six stores. The late Herman L. Lukhard, the father, started the business in 1947. Rawley -- they call him Dee Lukhard -- later bought out his brother's share.

Bobby Wilcox grew up working at Lukhard's. His first job was sweeping the porch of a Lukhard store for 25 cents when he was 12 years old. Later, he was hired as a bagger, shelf stocker and whatever else the Lukhard family needed him to do.

He worked part-time for Lukhard after leaving for East Carolina University to earn a degree in business administration.

In 1977, having finished college and gotten some outside retail experience under his belt, Dee Lukhard hired Wilcox and, before long, made him supervisor of all six stores.

One year, tragedy struck the Lukhards. They lost their daughter to leukemia. She left behind two small children. It happened during a time of intense competition in the supermarket business. Changes demanded new strategies and razor-sharp focus.

"I just didn't have the fire in the belly anymore," Lukhard said. Not long afterward, he sold two stores to Wilcox -- 400 Libbie Avenue and 423 Ridge Road -- then closed the other four and retired.

"There is no way I would have offered a business with our name on it to somebody else," Lukhard said. "Bobby was uniquely qualified" to run the stores. "You don't often see people that dedicated. We aimed at the upper end of the market. He adapted to that very readily. He worked very well for us and very well for me."

Wilcox "always thought of his customers first," added Bill Baxter, president of the Retail Merchants Association in Richmond, who knew him since the early 1990s when he served on the association's board.

Later, competitive changes and other market pressures would close in on Wilcox.

First, he turned out the lights at the 423 Ridge Road store. Then, in 1996, he sold the Libbie Avenue store after being approached several times by Rite Aid, the drug chain, which wanted the space. "We turned them down twice, but they kept coming at us."

Finally, when they returned, he consulted with trusted industry confidants and decided to sell. "It was one of the most heart-wrenching decisions I ever made in my life," he said. -- Iris Taylor