The long awaited Sullivan’s Marketplace is scheduled to open this week on April 6 and will provide Gluckstadt with its first grocery store.
This will be the first grocery store of Sullivan’s built from scratch, which provided the company the opportunity to customize its look. Customers will notice that this store has a larger perishables department, including meats, dairy, produce, and deli sections.
“Our other locations – we have bought existing buildings or businesses, so we have never been able to do something from scratch,” Vice President Parker Sullivan said. “Being able to start from the ground and go up from there, we are able to make decisions that we wanted to and make spaces the size that we wanted to instead of having to use what someone else had done 30 or 40 years ago. We were able to build this to today’s model, which is expanded perishable departments.”
Jeff McKnight, the store’s manager, said everything is done in house and nothing is prepackaged.
“All our meat market is fresh cut everyday,” McKnight said. “We don’t buy anything prepacked. Our delis will be prepared in house, and our produce is in house. We don’t buy anything pre-done.”
Sullivan said customers will find a wide variety in these sections because these perishable departments are much bigger than most independent grocery stores in the area. He said being able to build the store themselves also helped with the layout and flow of the store.
“We were able to really fine tune and pick out every single thing that we wanted to put in here versus having to inherit something from someone else that could’ve been built 20, 30, or 40 years ago,” Sullivan said.
Another difference that people may notice about Sullivan’s is there will be no self-checkout lanes. Sullivan said it is their perishable department and their customer service that sets them apart.
“We don’t have self checkouts here,” Sullivan said. “We will have a manned lane and a person at each check stand. We will check you out for every transaction. I think that we were able to expand on what we are good at, and that’s the perishable departments and the front end system.”
Sullivan said they saw the demand in Gluckstadt for a local grocery store, and they were already close to the community after opening a store in Flora in 2018. They bought the land in 2020 and began construction in the spring of 2021. He said construction took longer than anticipated due to COVID-19, and they are ready to be open.
“The community is ready for us,” Sullivan said. “If anything, they are just tired of waiting. Everybody that we have been talking to has been really excited and is ready to come check it out and see it. Believe me, we are ready to deliver and start selling some groceries and open up for the community to come in here. We know they are ready for it, and we are too.”
Sullivan said everyone in the community is excited and wants somewhere local to shop. They will also be supporting local businesses by bringing fresh produce in from Flora’s Salad Days Produce and Two Dogs Farms. Sullivan’s will offer local honey and jellies and are still working with other local vendors as well to get more local products in the store.
“We are very dedicated to this community,” Sullivan said. “We have already announced a second location. It is pretty obvious our profits will stay in the community, and we will keep investing in the community. We are excited to get started and start selling some groceries.”
The second location will be at Gluckstadt Road and Highway 463. Construction is anticipated to start this summer. This current location is at I-55 and Gluckstadt Road.
