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Charlestown Mini Super changes hands, with hot food set to return
Former employee Jeffrey Hanks and retired state environmental police officer Rich Browning have bought the Charlestown Mini Super and its land. The new ownership plans to bring back prepared hot food, which stopped during the COVID-19 pandemic.
CHARLESTOWN — Jeffrey Hanks began working at Charlestown Mini Super when he was 13. He is now a co-owner of the neighborhood grocery, which he and Rich Browning recently acquired along with its land from longtime owner Timothy Beck.
Browning is a retired law enforcement officer with the Rhode Island Department of Environmental Management. Beck had operated the store with his brother, Charlie, since 1983.
The new owners plan to bring back prepared hot food, a feature of small grocers that Charlestown Mini Super stopped offering during the COVID-19 pandemic. No details about the menu or when food service will resume were provided.
The sale shifts the store from a family operation that spanned more than four decades to a partnership that includes someone who began his working life there as a teenager.