A 13,000-square-foot store with a meat counter, a deli, a bakery, coolers replaced last year, and a staff that has been here five and ten years. A chain cannot change how it works for one town. A store this size can, in a week. Here is what you can do with it today, six things it could do next, and a form to tell the store which of them you would actually use.
Call 507-789-5101 for cuts, sliced meats and cheeses, and the store's own meatballs, pulsa, ham loaf and sausages. Holiday orders are taken months ahead; churches order by the supper.
Meat, cheese and produce trays from the deli. The staff will size the order for a funeral lunch, a graduation or a meeting.
Free on the App Store and Google Play: app-only specials, points on what you spend, loyalty rewards. The four-page ad by email every Wednesday from kenyonmarket@gmail.com.
The owner told the Kenyon Messenger in 2024 that the store delivers groceries for seniors who cannot get out, and the state's Aging and Disability resource directory has listed a Thursday delivery inside the city limits with no fee. Call the store to arrange it; there is no online ordering.
Buy the set number of milk or other marked items and the next one is free.
Openings are posted under Career Opportunities on kenyonmarket.com, or ask for Pete in the store.
These are proposals from this site to the store and the town, not services the store offers yet. Each one uses what the store already has: the coolers, the meat department, the app, the Thursday route, and people who answer the phone by name. The form below tells the store which ones have customers waiting.
Pay $500 now, spend $550 over the next year, on a card or in the app the store already runs.
Why it is good business. The store gets cash today, when it needs it, and a customer who has decided where the year's groceries come from. Restaurants and farm shares have raised money this way for decades; it costs the store the bonus and nothing else. Gift cards for Christmas are the same idea in a smaller size.
A weekly staples box, milk, eggs, bread, bananas, whatever you set, ready at the door every Friday at 4. Text a list to add to it.
Why it is good business. Fresh food loses money when it is thrown away, and a small store's margin is about one percent. Orders the store knows about a week ahead are bought right and never wasted. The phone, the app and the staff to do it are already there.
Churches, the K-W schools, daycares, teams, the fire department, the city, and employers: one account, one monthly invoice, standing orders for supper season and trays for events.
Why it is good business. Business volume with no card fees and no cash handling, and it arrives in predictable amounts. A&J Design alone has about 60 people working in town. One church supper order is a good week for the meat department.
Wanamingo, 1,111 people and eleven miles away, has had no grocery store since January 2018. A Thursday drop at one pickup point there, ordered by phone or app the day before.
Why it is good business. The store already delivers inside Kenyon on Thursdays. One more stop reaches a town with no store at all, before the dollar store that opened there in March becomes the habit.
Eggs, honey, garden produce, jams and baked goods from Kenyon and Wanamingo growers, sold on consignment near the door.
Why it is good business. Inventory that costs the store nothing until it sells, and the one thing a dollar store cannot copy. It gives the Fall Fest and Rose Fest vendors a place the other fifty weeks of the year.
The meatball supper in a box: Kenyon Market meatballs, gravy, potatoes, lefse. Game-day kits, holiday kits, a pulsa breakfast kit.
Why it is good business. Bundles raise the size of a basket and sell the products only this store makes. Kits are assembled from what is already in the coolers, so there is nothing new to stock.
Margin figure: University of Minnesota Extension's 2020 survey of rural grocers. Wanamingo: 1,111 people at the 2020 census; Buckstop Grocery closed January 2018; Dollar General opened there March 13, 2026. A&J Design staffing: Mainstreet Messenger letter, August 6, 2026. Thursday delivery: the state Aging and Disability resource directory listing for the store.
Check what you would sign up for and leave your email. The count and the list go to the store and to whoever buys it, so a new owner starts with customers already waiting, and so the store can pick the idea with the most names behind it first.
Organizations: say who you are in the message and roughly what you buy in a month. Producers: say what you grow or bake and when it is in season.
Leave your email and check what you would use. The store and any buyer see the list; no one else does.
