The gravitational pull of Cardona’s Market is strong on most of the men in the eponymous family. This spring, as the store celebrates its 75th anniversary, the third generation is officially taking over.

Augusto Cardona founded the food market downtown in 1945, a few years after arriving from his native Italy to New York’s capital, where his brother already ran a grocery. Though Augusto’s son Robert worked at his dad’s store as a young man, he vowed not to make a career of it. But Robert has owned Cardona’s Market since the mid-1970s, moving it to the current location, at 340 Delaware Ave., in 1978.