Cortez grocery touchstone of village

The “Mayor of Cortez,” Lou Nassar, was choked up.

So was his wife, Nancy.

Until retiring recently, they made Lou’s Cortez Market a neighborhood grocery in the truest sense for 32 years.

Patrons got more than cold cuts and cereal, detergent and diapers.

“You got friendship, sympathy,” said Joe Kane, a Cortez resident.

Good grades earned children a treat. Bad ones, a lecture.

New mothers brought their babies by.

Hard up families picked out what they needed and paid later.

“Lou cared about everybody,” Kane said. “We appreciated him for that.”
 
 
Read more in Sunday's Mannix About Manatee.