The Mercantile Man: Joe Burda And His Leland Institution

Many times it’s well before dawn as Joe Burda stands in the middle of the street, keeping an eye out and waving his hands to guide the latest semi truck as it slowly approaches the Leland Mercantile Co. with a fully loaded trailer.

It’s before dawn because it has to be, especially in the summertime. Such a big truck would clog up the whole town (and be impossble to maneuver) if the driver tried to complete his mission after the tourists are out and about.

So Burda gets to work around 4 a.m., ready to take what comes off these trucks and help lug most of it down to the basement of his 120-year-old brick building, only to haul it back up again when it’s needed out on the floor. Down and up, down and up.

These eccentricities come with the territory of owning and operating a historic grocery store in the very heart of tiny Leland, a store that was operating several decades before modern layouts with loading docks, dedicated alley space and same-floor stockrooms were commonplace.

And while working at what’s affectionately known as the "Merc” has its pros and cons (much like any job), Burda appreciates it. It's a community service, he feels, and he loves hearing positive feedback from his customers. Sometimes the feedback is quite pointed, as was the case with a certain recent customer who emphatically expressed his appreciation.

“He looked me right in the eyes and said ‘I come up here every year and I just love your store – don’t change a f****** thing. Everything around us is changing, but don’t change anything – this is perfect,'” Burda says. “I’m not really a foul-mouthed guy, but I appreciated the emphasis. And when you get an emphasized compliment like that, it kind of makes you puff your chest up a little bit. It’s nice to be noticed.”

Burda grew up at the Merc, and aside from cutting meat, there’s not a single task he hasn’t done there. His parents, Joe and Joni, bought it in 1983 (though Joe Sr. worked there for some time before making this purchase). The younger Burda and his wife Tiffany bought it in 2019, though his parents are still around.

“They live about a mile north of town, enjoying retirement and making me jealous,” he says with a grin.

But he and Tiffany are themselves raising three girls less than a mile from the Merc, and he’s constantly grateful for his ability to do so.

“I think what I appreciate the most about my job is I’m able to do it where I want to be. Having Fishtown and Lake Michigan out your back door is incredible,” he says. “(People who live around here) always talk about living in someone else’s vacation, well, I work and own a business in that vacation.”

Burda takes pride in various aspects of the Merc, including its famous cheeseburgers (“everyone just raves about them,” he says) to its focus on offering food and other products from local farms and producers.

“You have a sense of local pride in highlighting what everyone else is doing around here. I had a produce rep from downstate say that in Detroit, ‘local’ means Michigan and in Indiana, ‘local’ might mean Midwest,” he says. “Well for us, local means 10 miles or less.”

He admits there’s “no way around” customers getting cheaper prices at Meijer, Walmart or other retailers with exponentially more buying power (the Merc has Spartan as its distributor, allowing its prices to stay within reason). But that doesn't mean he’s out to gouge customers.

“We try to come as close as we can, and we really try to have nothing but quality stuff here,” he says.

From a business standpoint, the Merc is on solid footing and set to remain independent for the foreseeable future, Burda says. But there are challenges. For one, its relatively isolated Leelanau County location “hurts and helps” the bottom line.

“If (customers) don’t want to travel more than 20 minutes, they’re going to be here, and that’s great,” he says. “On the flip side, your employees probably can’t live around here, unless they’ve already been here for some time. Hiring is the toughest battle.”

He’s also had to adapt. Summer homes have transitioned to weekly rentals, which has changed the feel of Leland – along with the Merc’s stocking patterns.

“You used to know every face in every house. And with the short-term rental thing, it's a different family every week,” he says. “And you have to do business a different way, because they’re buying the same things over and over, so you're buying certain things (more frequently).”

Some things will never change, though, including the boom and bust of operating in a seasonal town.

“You ride on July, then you stock it away and burn it from November through March, April or whenever it is that the sun comes back,” Burda says. “It’s still slow in the offseason.”

For now, Burda will press on in the community he grew up in, even as it changes around him, for better or worse. He hopes his hometown will be just as strong and vibrant when the Merc hits many more milestones in the decades to come. 

“It's not the old Leland it used to be, but I don't know that any area around here is what it used to be,” he says. “I mean, change is coming. I just hope that everyone can get on board and do it in the same direction.”