GUILDERLAND — Edward Lysiak has been working at Greulich’s Market for 50 of the 61 years it’s been open.

A small, neighborhood market on Carman Road, the store offers fresh meat, baked goods, and farm-fresh produce.

Lysiak began cutting meat at the market when he was 27; he started butchering when he was 15.

“I’m rooted here,” he said. Although business has changed since the store opened in 1950, due to the addition of chain supermarkets close by, Lysiak said Greulich’s still offers the highest standard in customer service. He gets to know people who visit the meat counter regularly, and, through the years, he has seen families grow and add new generations, he said.

“No matter where I go, I run into someone I know,” he said. He lives just down the street from the store, which is located at 3403 Carman Road.

“It is just a little more personal here. There is such friendliness, it’s almost like a big family,” Lysiak said. At chain supermarkets, everything is strictly business, he said.

Another advantage to the market’s small size is that it chooses what to sell and buys only the best, he said.

“We keep our quality up to snuff,” he said of the meat counter.

In honor of Lysiak’s 50^th year of work at the market, his co-workers threw him a surprise party.

“I was surprised, but I was also having a fit, because they closed the store two hours early for the party so no one was at the meat counter!” Lysiak quipped.

Though he is now well into his 70s, he does not plan on retiring any time soon.

“Oh, I will be here until they have to take me out feet first,” he said.