Joeten Kagman Market soft opening tomorrow

The fastest growing village on Saipan will finally have access to a wider variety of grocery items with the expected soft opening of Joeten Kagman Market tomorrow.

J.C. Tenorio Enterprises, Inc.’s original plan was to have the Kagman store up and running before the end of the summer but for the many residents of Precinct 5 the arrival of the famous Joeten brand in Kagman couldn’t come any sooner, especially with Christmas Day just around the corner.

CNMI National Men’s Basketball coach Rufino Aguon said the opening of Joeten Kagman will make grocery rounds easier for residents of the village.

“It’s about time. I normally shop at downtown Susupe for fresh vegetables and in Dandan because it’s on the way home from work. I’m pretty happy with this development,” he said.

Former Board of Education teacher representative Ambrose Bennett, for his part, said the opening of the store will give residents in the area access to items they don’t normally get from the neighborhood stores.

“We have the Kagman Market here, they’ve been pretty much supplying most of our basic needs and things but for specialty items we have to go downtown to Joeten Dandan or to Susupe.”

He added that the opening will also be a boon to consumers because it creates more competition—hopefully resulting in better services and more reasonable prices.

“More competition makes it better for the consumers. So we welcome Joeten. It creates competition in the area and competition is to our advantage as a consumer. But what I’m hoping is we get more public services here so we don’t have to come down for our other needs like banking…” he said.

Kagman Komunidat Association president Jesse Torres, meanwhile, said the opening of Joeten Kagman is but fitting for a village that sorely needs such establishments.

“It saves us a lot of time, money, and gas because it’s nearby. Basically Joeten is also known for having variety and that’s what we really are looking forward too, plus the employment they’re going to offer. Mostly I’ve never heard anything bad from residents here, they’re all excited. We hope more businesses will come here too. We already have a post office, a video shop, and we even have a pawnshop,” he said.

It was earlier reported that J.C. Tenorio Enterprises is spending about $1 million to construct the 5,500-square-foot medium-sized grocery store.