Chamber President Ed Kearney said “ACE and the Simon’s are one of the main factors in our tremendous growth of our Home & Garden Expo the last 22 years as ACE was not only one of our Expo main Sponsors but they also paid one-half of all the advertising for our newspaper inserts and advertising every year. Even my daughter worked there for 2 years before going to college and said they are just the nicest people to work for and she loved working there.  They treat their employees like family and were always having treats and grilled food and really care.”  Dean Simon added that “the true reason for our success these 31 years is our employees are world-class with top service and knowledge”. He made a special point of making sure the new owners retain their employees as the Simons want them to benefit with employment job stability and also because the employees are so good.

The new owners will officially take over in 2 weeks. They are NFI FOODS in Illinois, another family-owned business who after this purchase, own 36 hardware stores, some County Market Grocery Stores, Little Caesars Pizza stores, Pet stores and some convenience stores in Illinois. We will introduce you to them once they reshuffle the deck at ACE.

We at the Apple Valley Chamber worked over the years with Dean Simon as well as his sister Nickey Simon. Their mother and father purchased their first ACE in New Prague in 1984 and as Dean told us, “limited hardware knowledge at the start but a work ethic that would make them world class in operating and expanding to 6 stores.”