Jun 10, 2006 By The 3 min read

Pechin founder Sullivan “Sully” D’Amico began the family-owned business in the basement of a home at the shopping village entrance in 1947 from scratch. “I plodded along, and the people have been good to us,” he said during a 1997 interview. “I never had many obstacles. I fought competition, but there was no way they could operate as cheap as we can.”

Soon, the business grew too large for the house basement and he sold his nearby residence in order to purchase the property where the landmark business stood for nearly 50 years.

“From there it just grew: the department store, the four lumber yards, four Vocelli Pizza franchises and the Denbo Marina in Brownsville,” said Marie Martin, niece of the founder during an interview following the family patriarch’s death in February 2005.

It was D’Amico who instituted the popular nickel cup of coffee, the first 19-cent hamburger and the free meal offered to senior citizens on Mondays, and despite urgings from family members to increase the costs, he stood firmly against the suggestions, said Martin.

“He said that he gave it to the customer and it was going to stay that way,” she said. “He never cared how much money he was losing.”

The low-cost hamburger drew the attention of the Wall Street Journal and the National Enquirer, which put the local landmark in the national limelight.

“They come to us from all over,” said D’Amico during the earlier interview. “We had someone call us from England wanting to do a write-up.

“We have people who have come from Miami, San Francisco, Chicago, places like that.”

D’Amico attributed the success of the business to hard work and paying attention to customer needs, not to mention relying on word of mouth that spread the Pechin name near and far for the last 50 years.

“If you have the desire and the ambition and people like you, you can do wonders,” he said, “but you gotta fight for it. It doesn’t come by itself.”

Last year, son Donald D’Amico leased a portion of the Laurel Mall that at one time housed Montgomery Ward and later Shop ‘n Save and moved the grocery store to the new location.

Since then, the sporting goods, beverage and other stores have been relocated to the Route 119 mall.

According to D’Amico, the changes made over time to the Pechin Shopping Village were an “evolution.”

“Everything changes. All across the nation. The main thing is to keep expanding and improving ourselves and keep our low prices and our services,” said Don.

With three children in the business, D’Amico said he hopes to continue operating for years to come.