Destination Shopping Is A Grocery Store?

Say the words destination shopping. I doubt a grocery store pops into your mind. Yet yesterday on a trip to the Capitol City, the one store I wanted to go to was the new Hy-Vee at 86th & Douglas in Urbandale. Why? Because it is the newest and largest of all the Hy-Vee's and because they have been touting it for several weeks. They tore down the previous Hy-Vee on this site in order to build the new one. I used to shop at the old one. I don't think there was anything wrong with it - just not large enough for the ever-growing population on that side of the metro.

We had to have lunch somewhere, so why not in the new dining area? We got to the store around 11 a.m., took a quick tour around the perimeter and decided to eat. Good thing we did because by noon there was hardly a place to sit. Bud had the daily special for $5.00 (Salisbury steak, green bean casserole, mashed potatoes and roll) while I had the 'all you can eat' salad bar. Next time I will save some room for their authentic Italian gelato for dessert.

One of the areas I was most drawn to was the bakery where there was a wide array of artisan crafted breads. Bread is one of my most favourite foods. I finally decided on a small loaf of Tuscan Flat Bread. The young man who sacked it for me was suggesting foods that it would go well with. I said, "You're assuming there will still be some left by the time I get home." He laughed.
The cheese shop was another interesting area. Talk about a helpful smile - after a couple samples, the gentleman behind the counter offered to fix up a way to put some cheese on ice for us after he learned we were from out-of-town if there was something we wanted to buy. Different kinds of cheeses fascinate me almost equally as does wine.
And that is the one area of the store which disappointed me - the wine shop. I really thought it would be larger and have more selection than their other metro stores do. The one at Mills Civic Parkway and I-35 is much better.
I could easily have spent more time and money here. Perhaps next time I will take an ice chest and come home with some things from their fresh seafood shop, the meat department, the deli, the .......

What a difference between yesterday's experience at Hy-Vee and the ones I remember from my childhood. This picture, taken during the Centennial Parade in 1957, shows the front of Corning's first Hy-Vee store. I remember it as the Supply Store which is what the Hyde & Vredenburg grocery stores were called before a contest in 1952 changed their names to Hy-Vee. This store was one of the first to feature a new invention called a grocery shopping cart. Instead of carrying a grocery basket around the store, there were two grocery baskets (one above, one below) mounted on a wheeled frame. The aisles in this store were so narrow, if you were behind someone you just followed them until you got to the back by the meat counter where there was room to maneuver around them.
A Supply Store grocery ad from 1947 lists a 100 pound sack of sugar for $8.98; whole or half hams for 59 cents a pound; a head of lettuce for 15 cents and Colby cheese for 49 cents a pound. You could phone number 39, place your grocery order and they would deliver it free to your door if you lived in town.
Lyle Silsby was the store manager until 1946 when he opened his own grocery at Sixth and Davis. It was a much larger store - time for Hy-Vee to move in order to compete.

Which they had done by the time Doug's dad began working for them. Here he is in his official Hy-Vee white shirt with pen in pocket - tie not yet clipped on - holding Douglas when he was just a few months old. The store had moved to the Turner Building at Eighth & Davis which was less than a block from the apartment on Benton where we lived then. The aisles were much wider and the grocery carts were much larger.  

It was only a few years before a new store was built at 10th Street and Hwy 148. It seemed so big and modern at the time even though there is hardly room for more than two carts next to each other in an aisle. This Hy-Vee is the last remaining grocery store in Corning. You could probably fit five or six stores this size inside the new one in Urbandale.

Much as I enjoyed our destination shopping yesterday, I'm content with the size and selection at our Creston Hy-Vee. I can find everything I really need - not just want - and I don't have to do as much walking and temptation resisting as I would have to in the new Urbandale store.