By LEAH WEATHERSBY

When Green Lake resident Therese Day purchased the building on the corner of N. 52nd Street and Woodlawn Avenue in 1984, she noticed that one of the two downstairs commercial spaces was set up as a grocery complete with merchandise shelves and resident mice.

Day heard a rumor through a friend about her building's interesting retail past, and when she received a mailer decorated with an historic photograph, she realized it was true: in 1945, the building housed the Surefine Grocery - a precursor to the Larry's Market chain.

"(The photo) is exactly the downstairs of my store," said Day. "I enjoyed that so much." The Surefine was owned by Audrey and Marshall "Mac" McKinney. The McKinneys were a mom-and-pop team whose son, Larry McKinney, would eventually found Larry's Market.

Mac and Audrey McKinney met in Wenatchee in the 1930s. Mac McKinney had left the family farm Missouri, hopping trains to points around the country in search of his fortune.

While in Wenatchee, Mac took a job at a shoe store where he was to meet Audrey Whisnand, daughter of a local fruit-stand owner. The two married and headed out to Seattle, drawn there by Mac's "entrepreneurial blood," said the couple's grandson, Mark McKinney. After working at Boeing and a stint in Alaska, Mac opened the Surefine near Green Lake in 1945 - the family also lived in the apartment above for a time. Conveniently enough, the next door retail space was inhabited by a meat shop.

The Surefine was one of several small groceries the couple would own in the Seattle area over the next few years (though they were ultimately all sold.)

Eventually, the McKinneys would purchase a store on Pacific Highway S. - a store that would later become a Larry's when their son took over the business. (The first store to be called Larry's Market was located on Beacon Hill.) Other stores followed including the North Seattle outlet, which opened at the Oak Tree shopping center in 1985.

Larry's Market is still a family business. Mac and Audrey's grandson, Mark McKinney, took over as president and CEO in 1998.

Day and her late husband, Emmett, purchased their building in 1984 because the lower retail spaces provided a good home for Emmett's furniture-building business. Sadly, he died of cancer only a few years after they acquired the property, but old Surefine building still has inhabitants of a creative bent.

Day, an artist, lives in the refinished upstairs apartment along with her daughter. Her son has a furniture-making shop in one of the lower apartments and the other space is a glass artist's studio.

Day said she has no immediate plans to let go of her slice of history.

"Unless my perfect place comes along, I'll probably be staying," Day said.