Jim Mason, in jeans and untucked shirt, doesn't look like the CEO of a burgeoning gourmet market chain as he tells me a story about his childhood. He remembers back to when he was a kid and his mom would call down to the local butcher shop and tell them what kind of meat she wanted. "She never felt the need to go down and look at what she was getting," explains Mason, "because she knew someone would be picking it out for her. She knew it would be good." Not only would the meat be good, but it would be delivered that afternoon.

From Mason, standing at the front of his new Messineo's Market in downtown St. Petersburg, it doesn't sound like an oft-repeated and refined anecdote that's more about branding than memory. It sounds wistful. And as he looks around the store after repeating it, Mason looks happy and hopeful about what he's created.

Beautiful, well-stocked and full of tasty food it may be, but don't think of Messineo's as a gourmet paradise or a saving grace for lovers of organic and natural foods. It can fill both those roles, but at its heart this market is the kind of neighborhood place that Mason was riffing about in his story. It's small, and that's kind of the point.

This article appears in Jul 8-14, 2010.