Changing of the guard

Fairview businessman purchases Big Bear’s beloved Springdale market

By Shannon Wells

The Gresham Outlook, Nov 4, 2009

Jim Clark / The Gresham Outlook

Phil ‘Big Bear’ DuFresne and his wife, Judy, plan to stay in Springdale after selling Big Bear’s Crown Point Market.

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You can’t tell from just driving by, but at Big Bear’s Crown Point Market and Deli in Springdale, an era just ended.

Namely, the man who gives the business its name, Phil “Big Bear” DuFresne, has followed through with his threat to retire. After weeks of negotiations, DuFresne sold the local institution to Balwant Bhullar, 43.

Owner of Fairview Chevron and Fairview Subs, Bhullar officially took over as hands-on proprietor Saturday, Oct. 31.

DuFresne put the business he and his wife, Judy, helmed for nearly 33 years on the market in spring 2008. His asking price was $1.2 million for the 4,000-square-foot store and .64 acres of property. The then-faltering economy, however, along with his own standards of succession, meant he had to be patient.

In the end, Bhullar was one of very few to whom DuFresne, 65, considered selling.

“Of all the people I looked at, if I could’ve chosen,” he says, “there were only two I thought had the right attitude and personality to go on.” The store “would always be a success, but (Bhullar) had the right ingredients to come up right behind me and make it a bigger, better business.”

According to Bhullar, the two businessmen negotiated the final figure to “about a million” dollars.

DuFresne says simply, “I got my price.”

Talking with wholesalers and some of Bhullar’s regular customers in Fairview further convinced the DuFresnes that Bhullar was the one.

“Everybody who’s done business with him has been impressed,” Phil DuFresne says. “It’s evident he’s built relationships with his customers. That’s very much a part of this business – a personal touch. These are personality businesses. I’ve seen people ruin businesses because of their personal inadequacies.”

It’s doubtful that any regular customer at the market – one of only two stores in the Springdale-Corbett area – found the bearded, gregarious, DuFresne lacking in personal warmth. He bolstered his jolly image as an unofficial ambassador for the unincorporated area through seasonal roles as Santa Claus and as marshal of the mammoth Fourth of July parade.

Bhullar says DuFresne’s community role is one of the things that attracted him to the business.

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