New Russ's Market Grocery Store Opens With Fanfare In Glenwood
After months of anticipation, Glenwood’s new Russ’s Market grocery store opened to some much-deserved fanfare last week.
The store, located in the shopping plaza at 900 S. Locust St., officially opened Wednesday morning with a ribbon cutting ceremony attended by company officials and members of the Mills County Chamber Of Commerce.
“How about this store,” MCCC Executive Director Jennie Davis said. “This is the first new grocery store for Glenwood in 50 years.”
The new Russ’s Market store is more than double the size of the store it replaced and offers some new amenities, most notably a fresh bakery and deli.
“We went from 12,000 square feet to about 29,000 square feet, so quite a jump,” said Jordan Raybould, B&R Stores Asset Manager and grandson of the grocery chain’s founder Russ Raybould. “Glenwood’s been great. They’ve been supporting us in that smaller store next door and we hope they’ll support us over here.”
Lincoln, Neb.-based B&R Stores has owned and operated a grocery store in Glenwood since acquiring Newman’s Thriftway from Dan Newman in 2018. Raybould said the patronage and support the business has received since opening in Glenwood convinced company officials that a new, larger store was needed and deserved.
“We just saw our store over here was just standing and growing. We felt we had hit capacity and when we got the opportunity to purchase the shopping center, we jumped at it with the plan of moving over here as soon as we could,” he said. “We know who we are – we’ve been running grocery stores for a long time, I’m a third generation grocer. We’ve got a great team around us and we just follow what we’re known for and carried that on over into Glenwood.”
Speaking at the ribbon cutting ceremony, Chad Taylor, director of the Russ’s Market store in Glenwood, echoed the sentiment of Raybould.
“This isn’t possible without this community and the surrounding communities,” Taylor said. “You guys made this store happen. Without you, we don’t build this store, so thank you very much.”
Both Raybould and Taylor shared praise for Pinnacle Construction, the Glenwood-based general contractor and partner in the construction project. The new Russ’s Market was built in the space that for the past half-century has housed discount department stores - Place’s, Pamida and Shopko Hometown.
Prior to Wednesday’s opening of Russ’s Market, the last new grocery store to open in Glenwood was Demory’s Super Valu in the 1970s. The Demory’s Super Valu location in the Glenwood Shopping Plaza would later house Newman’s Thriftway and eventually Russ’s Market’s original Glenwood store. A member of the Demory family – Tom Demory – was in attendance and recognized at Wednesday’s ribbon cutting.
B&R Stores operates under several banners aside from Russ’s Market, including Super Saver, Grand Apple Market, Allen’s, C&R Market, Cash Saver, Mason’s Supermarket and Joe’s Fresh Marketplace.
Founded in 1964, the family-owned corporation operates stores in Nebraska, Iowa and Missouri, employing more than 2000 workers.