They went to buy a meat slicer. They came home with an entire grocery store.

They went to buy a meat slicer. They came home with an entire grocery store.

When Scott Cohen stands in the main warehouse of Cohen Foods, he can feel nearly a century of family history around him. The company’s Granite City headquarters still occupies the brick building that his great-grandfather Herman Cohen and grandfather Louie Cohen purchased during the Great Depression. The old red “COHEN’S” sign remains out front, with...