When Mike Rothwell announced that his family was selling Pennington Quality Market after 66 years, he didn’t just put a grocery store on the market. He handed off a piece of his community’s identity.

The buyer he chose says everything about why this deal matters to Bucks County.

McCaffrey’s Food Markets, the family-owned chain rooted in Lower Bucks County since 1986, has acquired PQM, a beloved independent grocer in Pennington, New Jersey.

The deal brings McCaffrey’s to nine stores and signals the continued rise of one of the Delaware Valley’s most admired homegrown grocery brands.

A Bucks County Original

Jim McCaffrey III didn’t start with a supermarket. He started with a deli in Northeast Philadelphia in 1980, grinding it out behind a counter before opening his first full grocery store in Yardley six years later.

Four decades on, McCaffrey’s has become the standard-bearer for quality independent grocery retail in the region, with stores in Yardley, Newtown, New Hope, and a Simply Fresh gourmet format in Doylestown Borough.

A new full-size Doylestown Township store at Mercer Square Shopping Center is expected to open in early 2027.

What keeps customers coming back is the experience. McCaffrey’s runs a central kitchen in Langhorne that produces scratch-made prepared foods and fresh-baked goods delivered to every store daily.

Fresh seafood and produce arrive six days a week.

Knowledgeable butchers work the counter from open to close.

The artisan bakery and gourmet cheese departments draw the kind of devotion you rarely see at a chain supermarket.

Community commitment runs just as deep. McCaffrey’s annual Grocer Fights Cancer Day, launched by Jim McCaffrey III after his sister was diagnosed with cancer, has raised more than $550,000 for the American Cancer Society.

It is a detail that tells you something important about how this company sees itself.

Why PQM Sold

Pennington Quality Market opened in 1960 and the Rothwell family took ownership in 1981.

For more than four decades, Mike Rothwell and his sister Barbara built something that went well beyond a place to buy groceries. Teenagers landed their first jobs there.

Neighbors caught up in the aisles. Local organizations found a reliable community partner.

PQM was woven into the daily life of the Hopewell Valley in the way only a truly local business can be.

But the future of the business was uncertain. Larry Rothwell, who built the family’s ownership into something special, passed away in 2018. His grandchildren had no interest in taking over.

Post-COVID retail pressures piled on, as online shopping and delivery services chipped away at foot traffic that independent grocers depend on.

“We just don’t have the scale of some of our competitors,” Rothwell said.

Now approaching 70, Rothwell is ready for a new chapter. “I’m looking forward to the spontaneity of life,” he said. “Just to wake up and say, ‘What do I want to do today?’ Because the reality of this business is that it is seven days a week. You’re always on call.”

Letting go, though, is bittersweet. “When that sign comes down after all these years, there’ll be a tear in my eye for sure,” he said.

A 45-Year Friendship Behind the Deal

This acquisition has a backstory worth knowing. Larry Rothwell was the man who helped Jim McCaffrey III get his first store off the ground back in 1980.

Nearly half a century later, their children are completing what their fathers started.

Mike Rothwell is handing the store he grew up in to Jim McCaffrey IV, who is carrying PQM’s legacy forward under a new name.

Rothwell’s top priority throughout the sale was his staff.

Every PQM employee was offered a position with McCaffrey’s, something Rothwell called the most important part of the entire transition.

“They are the perfect partner,” Rothwell said. “We’ve been great friends over the years.”

What It Means for Bucks County Shoppers

The Pennington deal, layered on top of the coming Doylestown expansion, tells a clear story.

A homegrown Bucks County grocery brand is growing, and doing it without losing the independent identity that made it worth caring about in the first place.

For loyal McCaffrey’s shoppers, more stores mean more access to the prepared foods, fresh departments, and personal service that set this chain apart from every Giant and Acme in the region.

McCaffrey’s started as a deli. It is now nine stores strong, still family-owned, and still growing. Not bad for a Bucks County original.

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