Jeffcoats Family Market marks five years as Marks grocery anchor

When the ice storm knocked out part of Jeffcoats Family Market’s roof, the store did not shut its doors. Workers shifted merchandise into the undamaged section and kept serving customers in Marks, a response that showed why the grocery has become a daily lifeline for Quitman County families.

That resilience framed the market’s five-year milestone, celebrated April 13, 2026, as more than a business anniversary. James and Doris Jeffcoat opened the store in March 2021 in the former SuperValu location after the property had sat vacant long enough to deepen Quitman County’s food-desert problem. For a county of 6,176 people and a city like Marks with 1,444 residents in the 2020 census, the return of a full-service grocery meant fresh food, meat, deli items and jobs could be found close to home again.

The reopening closed a gap that had stretched back to June 17, 2017, when the previous full-service grocery shut down. Residents were left making long trips to buy basic staples, often driving 30 to 60 minutes one way, or 30 to 90 minutes round trip, to stores in places such as Batesville and Clarksdale. One account said the earlier closure cost the county more than 30 jobs and cut into local sales-tax revenue, making the market’s return an economic as well as a nutritional gain.

Jeffcoats also arrived with outside support. Quitman County tied the reopening project to a $200,000 Healthy Foods Financing Initiative award that helped with refrigeration, equipment and building improvements. The county’s own materials said that investment helped restore fresh-food access after years when local families had fewer options and had to leave town for groceries.

James Jeffcoat brought deep grocery experience to the effort, with more than 50 years in the industry, including about 30 years in management, operation and ownership. Another account said he spent 35 years managing a Sunflower Food store before opening his first Jeffcoat’s Family Market in Tunica about a decade earlier. At the Marks store, Jeffcoat credited the team’s loyalty and customer service, pointing to store manager Debbie Hearn, the meat-market staff, deli staff and produce workers as the reason the business endured. Hearn, in turn, thanked employees who made the effort to get to work in freezing conditions and keep the market running when travel was difficult.

That is the role Jeffcoats now plays in Quitman County: not just a grocery, but a steady local anchor in a county where distance, weather and limited retail options have long shaped everyday life.