After 20 years behind the counter of the Bluejay Market in Perry, Bob Boyle — Bluejay Bob as he is universally known — is selling the business and retiring.
The new owners of the convenience store at 2810 Willis Ave. are Deepak Nayyar and Shelley Nayyar, a West Des Moines couple who formed Shop and Go LLC but who will continue to do business as the Bluejay Market.
“Everything will be the same,” Boyle said Saturday, “only better.”
Boyle said he would work for a couple of weeks with the Nayyars, familiarizing them with the stock and the procedures in place at the store.
“I’ll be here for a while,” Boyle said, “just to help out and make sure things go smoothly.”
Shelly Nayyar said she works three to four days a week as a nurse at Iowa Lutheran Hospital in Des Moines, so she will be available to help her husband part-time at the Perry store.
Deepak Nayyar was most recently the manager of the health market at the Hy-Vee in Johnston.
“I worked there with Darin Schoop,” Nayyar said, “but now he has gone on to be the director of the Pleasant Hill Hy-Vee.” Schoop was the store director of the Perry Hy-Vee from 2013 to 2014.
The Perry City Council approved provisional liquor and tobacco permits for Shop and Go LLC at their last regular meeting. The permits are contingent upon the property’s passing fire and police inspections.
The Nayyars said they look forward to meeting the Bluejay Market’s regular customers and getting comfortable in the Perry community. A Chamber of Commerce ribbon cutting is likely in the offing.
