At 60, Elbe's is a Wheaton Landmark

It was half a century ago, but Miriam and Willie Bobrow remember the long days they spent running in Wheaton during the 1950s, when they opened shop. A pregnant Miriam would stock shelves. Her husband would get up early to buy fresh vegetables and meats, which he'd cut and display for sale that day.

"We worked day and night," said Willie Bobrow, 90, one afternoon at the store, which recently marked its 60th anniversary and is Wheaton's oldest continuously operating business. "I used to go to the market at five in the morning to buy the merchandise."

Elbe's -- which was honored on its anniversary with a plaque from County Executive Isiah Leggett -- has changed over the years.

Back when it opened in 1951, the store sold and delivered groceries, a part of the business that the Bobrows gave up when big supermarkets moved in, making it hard to compete. Today the store sells mostly beer, wine, lottery tickets, cigarettes, sodas and snacks.

The Bobrows have lived in nearby Kensington for 50 years, and had five children, all who would come to work with their parents. Two of their four sons, Jeff and Andy, now run Elbe's. Miriam and Willie still help out, as does a sister who lives nearby and pitches in during the busy, holiday seasons. Another brother works at a liquor store in Washington, DC, and another is a firefighter with the Montgomery County Fire and Rescue Service.

The community has changed too. Back when Elbe's opened, its West University Boulevard site was surrounded by grassy lots, . Then Wheaton Plaza opened in 1960, followed by more stores . And while Wheaton has always had a mix of white and African-American residents, today the growth of Latino, Asian, African and other populations has made the community even more diverse.

"Wheaton felt like a little rural town," said Miriam, 79, who on a recent afternoon manned the store's cash register while her husband sat behind the counter and her sons worked at other jobs around the store.

The Bobrows came to Wheaton in 1951, the same year they were married. Miriam, a native of New York City's Bronx borough, moved to Washington with her family when she was 10. Willie emigrated from Poland at 16, following his parents and siblings who were brought over earlier by an uncle. He served in the U.S. Army during World War II. After that, he worked with a partner at a grocery on Georgia Avenue near downtown Silver Spring.

The Bobrows credit their sons for bringing in new ideas that helped Elbe's thrive over the years, including expanding the store's lottery business and, in the 1980s and 90s, supplying kegs and beer trucks for corporate parties.

Beyond business savvy, though, the factor that may have helped Elbe's endure over six decades is that they have loyal customers who've been coming in for years. Some only come in once or twice a year, to stock up on wine and beer for holiday dinners and parties. But they still come.

Natalie Cantor, who directs Wheaton's for Leggett's office and presented the plaque to the Bobrows, said Elbe's is the kind of shop that people expect to find in Wheaton.

"One of the constants running through Wheaton -- no matter what the demographics are -- is that people really want to see and feel this place as a small town," said Cantor, herself a resident of Wheaton for over 40 years.

"They want to see it as unique, and I think what makes people happy is to have corner stores, so to speak, even though we have a large downtown," said Cantor. "You want to go in where you know the people, whether it's the sales people or the owners, and where they have some knowledge of you."

The Bobrows have tried to return the favor. For instance, when Elbe's got a shipment of 8,000 to 10,000 pounds of dry ice during a multi-day power outage, they could have sold out the entire stock to a few big commercial customers. But the owners limit how much they'll sell so that more people can get at least some dry ice to hold them over until their power returns.

"We've had people lined up and down Georgia Avenue," said Jeff, who has worked fulltime at Elbe's for 41 years. His brother Andy has worked there 36 years.

"It's been very good," said Miriam. "When other businesses failed, we still stayed on top."