In 1984, a new Hy Vee store opened on the corner of Minnesota Avenue and 33rd Street here in Sioux Falls.
Since that time, I have been a loyal Hy Vee customer. And that Hy Vee has been my Hy Vee. I recognize its layout – its idiosyncrasies, its odd way of organizing, its changes and updates. I used to rent video after video, Nintendo games – and then Super Nintendo games – at its video rental counter. Later, when that counter turned into a floral boutique, I bought my flowers there. I grew up knowing there was a helpful smile in every aisle. Every aisle.
Over the years, we’ve gone elsewhere for more specialized items. After all, this Hy Vee was the smallest in town, and it didn’t have everything that the larger branches contained. There was no bank and no healthcare provider. There was no health food section. There was barely a mailing center, and the customer service counter was hardly a speck on the back wall.
But above everything, that Hy Vee was my childhood grocery store. It’s the first place I ever thought to go when I needed food. And even though it’s just a grocery store, I hold fond memories of it – of walking through its cold aisles during a sweltering heat wave and of choosing fish to grill while holding a six pack of Grain Belt Premium.
It’s a memory now, for sure. Yesterday was the last day it was open. And, in the face of sweeping change and improvement, another of my childhood haunts has moved. Disappeared. Wiped clean and replaced with an Avera Medical Equipment storage area.
I can’t be sad for long, though. The coziness and quaintness of my childhood Hy Vee will be long forgotten. Because now, just a few blocks down, a giant new grocery store is about to open – a Hy Vee of epic proportions. Cooking classes, CuraQuick health care, specialized sections for health food, baby items and alcohol.
Sure, I’ll miss the old, cracked linoleum, the smell of floor wax at two in the morning as they’re refinishing the tiles and the sub-zero freezer temperatures.
Not for long, though. I may be a sucker for nostalgia, but I’m an even bigger sucker for convenience.
(Not paid for by Hy Vee. I promise.)
Holy shit! It’s gone?! There was an era – in the way only kids growing up in a small city in the Amerikan midwest in the bubble 90′s could’ve experienced it. Hegna got his first highschool job there. Sometime Junior year, Langley and I underhandedly obtained from there cigarettes to compliment a weekend bonanza trip to Duluth to visit UMD. And of course I couldn’t forget the thrill of perusing the lackluster organics section whenever I happened to be in, shorting the co-op for small things out of one-stop convenience….or was that one of the larger Hy-Vee’s? One may get the impression that I’m taking a piss, but my oh my, would that be out of place in Sioux Falls. The city where deadpan irony is the flip-side of local color. …And not the only city either. That pretty much summs it up for 3rd-5th tier power centers in every country I suppose. And for those of us with roots in this particular breed of mediocre chance and circumstance, Long Live Hy-Vee!!
…And the East Dakota Natural Foods Co-op, which isn’t far away; as a member I’d be happy!…or the Bread Smith…does anyone still go there?…Last I checked Bagel Boy was stale at 7:30am and served just as bad coffee.
Silence your criticism of Bagel Boy!
Yup, as members of the Co-op and frequent Breadsmith customers, I can attest to you that they are still there.