The Yellow Springs Community Foundation — the present owner of Springs Market — recently announced that villager Erica Rodriguez-Wyant was selected among a pool of nearly 20 candidates as the grocery store’s next general manager. Pictured above: Rodriguez-Wyant holds aloft the latest special, which extends through the week: three ears of corn for $2. (Photo by Reilly Dixon)
New general manager at Springs Market
- Published: August 9, 2026
The changes keep coming at the newly minted Springs Market.
Since Aug. 2, dairy and frozen foods manager Erica Rodriguez-Wyant has taken on the role as general manager, overseeing the 30-some employees and keeping Yellow Springs’ longtime downtown grocery store up and running.
Rodriguez-Wyant’s promotion is the latest development at Springs Market — formerly Tom’s Market — since the Gray family sold the store to the Yellow Springs Community Foundation earlier this summer for an undisclosed amount.
The Yellow Springs resident has worked at the grocery for the last year, and most recently, has been working under the wing of professional grocer and interim general manager John Mabbott, whom the foundation hired to help transition the store to new ownership.
Rodriguez-Wyant comes to the position with a background in management — most recently having run a Starbucks, then the C-Shop at Antioch College — and as a mother of three, and all the nearly 30 years of management that entails.
“I’m just so excited,” she told the News earlier this week. “I love this job, the people I work with, the people that shop here.”
It must have been that passion that kept her going the morning of her News interview. A couple hours earlier, before the sun had risen, Rodriguez-Wyant single-handedly unloaded many hundreds of pounds of produce from the day’s delivery truck. Though her denim coveralls were drenched by the end, she still had to unlock the store by 7 a.m. — grocery sales wait for no one.
“Sure, it’s backbreaking work sometimes, but it’s worth it — I just really love this work,” Rodriguez-Wyant said with a grin.
In an email, Kumar Jensen — another longtime local and a project manager for the YS Community Foundation — said Rodriguez-Wyant rose to the top of the nearly 20 candidates in the search process owing to her “knowledge of the store, strong relationships with staff and the community, work ethic and expertise as a problem solver.”
“Erica is an incredibly fast learner, dedicated to her work and her team, and has demonstrated time and again that she is a reliable and dependable leader,” Jensen wrote. “We are truly excited to be able to hire from within and are looking forward to continuing to invest in and support Erica as the store leader.”
Interim manager Mabbott concurred.
“You don’t need to be religious to see her as a blessing,” he told this reporter in aisle four. “She’s a grocer at heart and she loves this town. What else is there?”
Though she has a few days before officially hitting the linoleum and running as manager, Rodriguez-Wyant said she hopes to implement a few needed changes at the grocery store — most of which entail shoring up communication between the store’s departments and staffers, and “figuring out a better work flow,” as she put it.
“So, that means minimizing the ‘who do I talk to’ questions when an employee isn’t sure what to do,” she explained.
By and large, Rodriguez-Wyant trusts her managers to make the right calls.
Behind the deli, Boar’s Head meats and cheeses have been recently phased out in favor of Amish cuts from Holmes County, Ohio-based Troyer Market. Also, paninis are returning to the deli counter imminently, Rodriguez-Wyant said.
For the meat department, she said she and the foundation have been on the lookout not for a new in-house butcher, but rather a local meat purveyor who could drop off smaller and fresher deliveries — a move that will supplant the pre-packaged cuts that the store began selling a few years ago.
An emphasis on local fare is also the priority in the produce department. Rodriguez-Wyant said area growers such as Orion Farms, Peach Mountain Organics and Guided by Mushrooms will always have shelves in Springs Market for their fruits, veggies and herbs. Produce manager William Morgan added that he’s hoping to secure even more produce from village farmers and gardeners, and encouraged any grower to reach out.
Rodriguez-Wyant also noted that she aims to round out the staff a little more: She said she’s looking to onboard a few more cashiers, her replacement manager for the frozen foods department and, understandably, a part-time position devoted entirely to unloading delivery trucks.
“And, of course, we’ll have more and more specials,” Rodriguez-Wyant added. “Right now, for instance, we have a dozen Amish eggs — normally for $7.49 — on sale for $3.99 for a dozen. Also, there’s sweet corn up front.”
Running a small-town grocery isn’t all bushels of corn and discount eggs, though. Rodriguez-Wyant cited the store’s temperamental equipment as a considerable foe. About two weeks ago, on July 15, Springs Market’s 15-door freezer in aisle six went out — the temperature rose to 71 degrees overnight and the store lost more than $13,000 in product.
It was a fluke and the fault of no one, Rodriguez-Wyant said, but still something she desperately hopes to avoid in the future with the aid of live temperature sensors.
Like any good modern grocer, she’s taken to checking cooler and freezer temps from her phone before falling asleep.
Though she and other staffers had to pitch quite a bit of spoiled stuff from that unfortunate malfunction, Rodriguez-Wyant said the village isn’t in jeopardy of losing its crown grocery store amid all the transitions and changes.
“Springs Market isn’t going anywhere,” she said confidently. “It’s changing, so give us a little grace, but it’s here to stay.”
Mabbott offered a few encouraging figures as evidence: He said the store is averaging 600 customers per week, and the typical basket in the check-out lane contains an average of $18 in store product. That’s just a couple dollars shy of the average basket in 2019 — the store’s most recent heyday by Mabbott’s metrics.
Under Yellow Springs Community Foundation ownership, Springs Market continues to chart a path toward the potential development of a co-op ownership model. The latest stride toward such a business model is the establishment of a local volunteer-based steering committee, which the News will detail in a write-up in next week’s issue of the News.
The Yellow Springs News encourages respectful discussion of this article.
You must login to post a comment.
Don't have a login? Register for a free YSNews.com account.
No comments yet for this article.