SIOUX FALLS, S.D. (KELO) – It’s now been a little over a month since Fair Market celebrated its soft opening at a second location in west-central Sioux Falls. The salvage grocery store allows people in the area to pick up household staples at cheap prices without having to travel far.
Betty Grey has been a frequent shopper at Fair Market’s east location along 10th Street, but she’s happy another store opened up along Kiwanis Avenue.
“Because this is called the food desert and so this is wonderful for the people who live around here that they can come and get really reasonable prices,” Grey said.
This new Fair Market location helps alleviate a need for easily-accessible groceries after a HyVee closure last year created a food desert in this neighborhood.
“It’s been really exciting to be able to get to serve people who needed a resource like this,” Kristin Johnson, executive director of Fair Market, said. “Clearly we’re not as full service as some of the other grocery stores in town but the fact that we always have milk, we always have eggs and we have a bunch of those staple items, they’ve just been so grateful.”
And Johnson says shoppers have been stopping by steadily ever since the store’s doors opened.
“We’ve had a few surprises, a few people came in and like wiped us out of certain things and so I had to like quick order it again. Just because they’re like, ‘wow this is a great price,'” Johnson said.
Johnson says the west-side location offers a little more variety than the east-side location.
“The HyVee leaving really left a big dent in this neighborhood and they’re having to drive, some people don’t have cars and so this is closer for them to come to,” Grey said.
“Keep the food coming. Keep saying, ‘feed all the people’ so we keep buying all the food,” Johnson said.
The west store is located at 523 North Kiwanis Avenue. It is open from 10 to 5, Monday through Friday and 10 to 4 on Saturday.