Andrew Skikos, founder of Andy’s Produce Market in Sebastopol, dies at 88

Andrew Skikos, who founded Andy’s Produce Market in 1964 as a humble open-air farmstand in Sebastopol, died at his Santa Rosa home on March 18 at age 88, surrounded by his loved ones and his faithful miniature dachshund, Willie.

Growing up as one of eight children in Ogden, Utah, Skikos learned early on the values of hard work, humility, faith and family. He carried those principles with him throughout his life as a loving father of five, an astute businessman and a self-effacing philanthropist who gave to charities that fed the hungry, said friends and family.

In 2014, as the open-air produce market celebrated its 50th anniversary, Skikos recalled that he stayed busy as a kid helping his family work their small farm and peddling the farm’s produce door to door. In wintertime, he recalled, there was not much to eat.

“My father’s family were really poor, so people going hungry stuck with him,” said his daughter Kim Heing of Tetonia, Idaho. “One of his main goals was to feed the hungry.”

Over the years, Skikos’ family of five children grew to include 19 grandchildren and 39 great-grandchildren. Many of them worked at the produce market.

“He instilled in us our work ethic, and he worked hard,” said his daughter Shelley Klucznik of Santa Rosa. “We all grew up in the business. We had to work when we were young kids.”

Over the years, his family expanded to include everyone in the market, from his employees to his customers, who ranged from tourists heading to the Russian River to west county locals.

“He basically turned the business into family,” said market manager Jack Wingett. “He treated the business and the people with it like family. He knew your wife’s and kids’ names. … Everything has been about family.”

Wingett, who started work at Andy’s in 1985, said the small farmstand has undergone tremendous growth, expanding physically as it followed the trends in how people bought and consumed food. Through every upgrade, however, the family has kept the front wall of the market open to maintain the charm of the original farmstand.

“There might have been 10 varieties of apples, and now you’ve got 100,” Wingett said. “We buy salmon from Bodega Bay. We’ll buy some Meyer lemons locally, and we’ll buy local walnuts and figs.”

In 1988, Wingett helped launch the market’s wholesale arm, which now amounts to a robust 30% of the business. A fleet of six small trucks currently delivers produce to more than 100 local restaurants from Petaluma to Santa Rosa.

Wingett said Skikos felt customers should be treated like family and taught him the adage that the customer is always right.

“It’s easier to keep customers coming back than to try to get new ones,” Wingett said. “So you always want to be friendly.”

Finding Eden

Although he only earned a high school diploma, Skikos had a head for numbers, and he expected his employees know their percentages as well, Wingett said.

In the early days of the business, Skikos would drive a semitrailer down to the San Francisco produce markets at 4 a.m. to buy produce, then return and work at the store. He’d go to bed every night by 8 p.m.

“He was having to know how much stuff costs, and he could tell you the profit,” Klucznik said. “He would have the profit in his head before we had it on our adding machine.”

Skikos’ love of numbers led him to bestow a number on each of his 19 grandchildren, according to their birth order. At the end of his life, his own numbers seemed to align: the 88-year-old, who was born in 1933, died in 2022 at 2:22 a.m.

“That was definitely his salute to the love of numbers,” daughter Heing said.

Skikos’ father was a Greek immigrant from Argos outside of Athens, Greece, and his mother was American. He attended Judge Memorial High School in Salt Lake City and went to one year of college, then returned to Ogden to help his family with their small produce market.

He met his wife, Kathrin, at a hamburger stand in Ogden, and the couple fell deeply in love. They were married in 1953 in Eli, Nevada, having eloped because Kathrin was not yet 18.

Looking for something more stable for his growing family, Skikos set off for a trip to Northern California in his late 20s and fell in love with Sonoma County. He returned to Ogden and told his wife he had found “Eden.”

Redwood food bank beginnings

The couple opened their first farmstand on Sebastopol Road in Santa Rosa in 1963. A year later, they opened a second farmstand in Sebastopol. Eventually, they would launch a total of five farmstands in the North Bay.

By 1964, the couple began donating food to the community. They packed their old truck and parked it along Santa Rosa Avenue, where they distributed the food themselves.

“They would go down there a few times a week and drop off food,” Heing said. “Then he got together with more affluent men in town, and that’s how the Redwood Empire Food Bank started.”

In the 1970s, the couple decided to concentrate on their crown jewel, the Sebastopol store located in a former nursery along Highway 116. To secure extra buying power and lower prices, Skikos expanded into the wholesale and trucking business. At its height, Andy’s had a fleet of 10 semitrailer trucks.

“That was his passion,” Kucznik said. “They still have the market truck that goes down to San Francisco every night, and the other truck goes to Yuma and down into the valley.”

In addition to being a founding member of the Redwood Empire Food Bank, Skikos served for many years as the president of St. Vincent de Paul Society, the Catholic volunteer organization dedicated to serving the poor. He also served as an advisory board director for Summit State Bank in Santa Rosa.

After easing into retirement about 10 to 15 years ago, Skikos still enjoyed returning to the produce market to fill in for key people on vacation.

“You would see a twinkle in his eye,” Wingett said. “His life was the business, and he got joy out of that.”

The entrepreneur also found joy traveling nationwide with his wife in their motor home and in doting on his dogs, which ranged from Labradors and German shepherds to dachshunds.

After his wife died in 2016, Skikos also found happiness in the company of his best friend, Willie the dachshund, always by his side.

As a father, he always told his children he loved them, especially before hanging up the phone. If he was eating when they stopped by, he invited them to sit and share a meal.

“He wanted to make sure that you were taken care of,” Heing said. “He would offer you a bite.”

A self-effacing man who didn’t like to be the center of attention, he inspired his children to give back to their community without seeking gain for themselves.

“You’re giving to help people in need and not to be recognized,” Heing said. “You don’t make a show of it.”

Along with his wife, Skikos regularly attended church services at St. Rose Catholic Church and St. Seraphim Orthodox Christian Church in Santa Rosa as well as St. John’s Church in Healdsburg.

“His faith was important,” Klucznik said. “He was a very devout Christian.”

He also celebrated his Greek heritage by going to Greek festivals and enjoying the food and drink of his father’s homeland.

“He’d get some ouzo and listen to the music and dance and eat some good food,” Heing said. “There’s a lot of good Greek restaurants in San Francisco, and I’ve been to a few with him.”

In addition to his wife, Kathrin, he was preceded in death by his son, Jim Skikos, and daughter, Julie Kozlowski. In addition to his two daughters, he is survived by his son, Chris Skikos of Santa Rosa, 19 grandchildren and 39 great-grandchildren.

A rosary service will be held at 6 p.m. Friday, followed by a funeral service at 10:30 a.m. Saturday, at St. Rose Catholic Church in Santa Rosa. A reception will immediately follow the service at Sally Tomatoes in SOMO Village in Rohnert Park.

In lieu of flowers, donations may be made to Redwood Empire Food Bank or the American Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals.

Staff Writer Diane Peterson can be reached at 707-521-5287 or diane.peterson@pressdemocrat.com. On Twitter @dianepete56.