A short line had formed when the IGA Market in Oakland opened its doors for the first day of business yesterday morning.

Customers roamed the narrow aisles as if in wondrous awe. Many wore staff IDs from nearby hospitals, or scrubs, and some, like Sharon Mitchell, in a Forbes Field T-shirt, walked a few blocks from their homes.

"We deserve this," said Ms. Mitchell, who remembered "when this place was a bowling alley."

Almost a decade without a full-service grocery, Oakland's workers, residents and students climbed the stairs or rode the elevator to the second floor of the Strand Building to welcome store owner Ron Levick's first foray into this most essential of businesses.

The last Oakland grocery was a Giant Eagle on Forbes.

Just as people lament a grocery's passing and rejoice for a new one, they can bond with their neighborhood market.

Such is the case at Ruggeri's Food Shop in Squirrel Hill, where James Devers and Joya Burkholder also spent their first day as grocers yesterday.

On Thursday, John and Dave Ruggeri sold the small gourmet market on Northumberland Street that they ran for 25 years. In the weeks that led up to the closing, customers found out and became "very upset," said Barbara Weiner, a regular customer. "It's like family here."

She said she would miss the Ruggeri brothers, "but I'm so glad it's still going to be here. I couldn't do without it."

Ruggeri's is filled with light. It has a deli in back, a pizza nook in front and an upscale assortment of groceries. Peaches sit in a basket on the counter. Melons and bananas on a glass shelf at the front look as if they are art on display.

Ms. Burkholder said any changes she and Mr. Devers make will be gradual and "based on what customers want." They want to increase the prepared meals and baked goods, she said, but they are more than satisfied with the size and the name.

The partners have worked in the food and beverage business, together and separately, since they met at Penn State. They went looking for an established gourmet market to take over, or failing that, to start one from scratch.

"This was easier, to walk into a place with inventory and customers in place," Ms. Burkholder said. "We like the neighborhood, the foot traffic and we definitely don't want to lose the charm of this place."

John Ruggeri, 54, said the decision is "bittersweet, but I want to take it easy for the first time in my life. I've been doing this [grocering] since I was 12," starting in his father's businesses in Blawnox. "I saw my dad work his whole life. He was here on the day he died."

He has introduced the new owners to the old customers and will help them make the transition until the middle of next month, when he plans to start "smelling the roses."

For Mr. Levick, who operated nightclubs on the second floor over the years, the grocery business was obviously the missing piece in a building of commercial tenants and residential tenants, with a big space in between and no grocery store for miles.

The IGA has wood floors, and its aisles are too narrow for carts; only baskets are provided.

"It's awesome, and we're mad," said a laughing Lindsay Bussey, a 2008 graduate of the University of Pittsburgh. "We graduate and then this store comes."

She and a friend, Adrienne Conte, recently moved to Shadyside.

"From every place I lived for the last four years," said Ms. Conte, "I could have walked here."