Photo by: Chad Lawhorn/Journal-World

Reanna Slagle, an owner of Jody’s Market, serves a customer at the micro-grocery store near the corner of Ninth and New Hampshire streets.

A lot has changed in the world of corner shops.

Finding one is, of course, the biggest change. A favorite pastime for certain groups of retirees is to list all the locations where a grocery store used to be in Lawrence. According to group stories, there are many (and you had to walk uphill in both directions to get to them).

Maybe that last part isn’t quite true. Most of them were actually located in places that were much more convenient for pedestrians than, say, semi-trucks and their long trailers. That’s probably one of several reasons why the mom-and-pop grocery store is hard to find in today’s world. Maybe jet planes made the world smaller, but you can argue that semi-trucks had the opposite effect on stores.

“One of the major grocery suppliers won’t come to us at all because we don’t have a loading dock,” Chad Slagle, one of the owners of the new Jody’s Market in downtown Lawrence, told me.

You may remember that in June I reported that there would be a new mom-and-pop grocery store downtown. Jody’s Market actually opened in July at 10 E. Ninth St., in a location about halfway between Massachusetts and New Hampshire streets.

Jody’s Market, 10 E. Ninth Street, is pictured on August 20, 2024.

It has to be one of the most unusual businesses to open in Lawrence recently, so I decided to go back to find out more about how it’s been doing. Owners Chad and Reanna Slagle said they’re thrilled with the welcome customers have given to downtown Lawrence, but there have also been a thousand challenges to opening the business.

Chad estimated that there are about 1,000 products in the store, each one presenting its own little challenge.

“That’s probably one of the biggest challenges,” Chad said. “We have to serve smaller orders and smaller suppliers.”

The duo figured it out. The shelves were full, and customers flocked to the store on Tuesday afternoon. The store certainly won’t have everything a modern grocery store has, and there’s no excuse for that.

“We’re not backed by a huge corporation like Dillons,” Reanna said. “Hopefully people understand that the money they spend with us helps the business grow. We can’t be Dillons, but we try our best to be a little mom and pop shop for them.”

But if you think the store is just a fancy convenience store, it’s not that. When you walk in, you’ll see a shelf of fruits and vegetables—that day, the items on sale included potatoes, tomatoes, bananas, peaches, onions, and apples. A freezer case offered a few more varieties, including carrots, lettuce kits, and locally grown jalapeños. For people who wanted to grab their stuff to go, there were Hawaiian ham sliders, “crazy taco pinwheels,” and cheese, salami, and olives if you wanted to build your own charcuterie board. Good luck with that in a convenience store. (It’s possible, but I suggest telling the butler to call them Slim James instead of Slim Jims.)

The shelves are stocked with household goods like ketchup, salsa and other condiments. There are also some staples like flour and other broth ingredients. There are canned soups, packets of cookies and a small section with non-food items like household cleaners and toilet paper. There is even a section for canned fish and there are other unexpected items scattered throughout the store. Many of them are vegan.

Photo by: Chad Lawhorn/Journal-World

Grocery makes up the majority of the estimated 1,000 products stocked at Jody’s Market in downtown Lawrence (photo taken August 20, 2024).

Photo by: Chad Lawhorn/Journal-World

New micro-grocery store Jody’s Market often has to work with smaller suppliers to keep its shelves stocked.

The front of the store also has some of the office snack staples, including bags of chips and cans of soda, but don’t look for Pepsi or Coca-Cola products. The major beverage distributors weren’t exactly thrilled to supply a mom-and-pop shop either. Chad said distributors weren’t willing to put the store on any of the regular routes.

But that may change. The couple said the store is constantly growing. Part of that process is getting Lawrence residents to understand what a mom-and-pop store is. Chad and Reanna learned about the concept when they lived in San Francisco and frequently visited bodegas and other small grocery stores. But that concept hasn’t been as common in Lawrence for a long time.

“It’s going to take some time for this to become routine for people,” Chad said.

But the Slagles believe there are plenty of locals willing to give it a try. The store already has a regular clientele among downtown workers who want a snack or a meal to go for lunch. Others pick up a few things after work because they say they don’t want to wait in line at a full-service supermarket. Others live downtown, and Chad said he believes Jody’s Market — which, in case you’re wondering, is named after Reanna’s mother — will play an important role as downtown attracts more residents.

“I think we are at the forefront of creating a sustainable downtown district,” Chad said. “We want downtown to be more than just a tourist or entertainment district.”

Photo by: Chad Lawhorn/Journal-World

Chad Slagle, owner of Jody’s Market in downtown Lawrence, stocks the store’s produce section with onions on August 20, 2024.

In fact, a downtown grocery store has been on the wish list of many downtown stakeholders for more than a decade as they’ve tried to lure the big chains into larger downtown buildings — a Price Chopper was close to closing a deal for the former Borders bookstore building at the corner of Seventh and New Hampshire streets years ago.

Whether Jody’s Market will be big enough to satisfy these grocery store advocates remains to be seen. What is clear, however, is that the Slagles enjoy some advantages because they are small. Customers almost always deal with one of the store’s owners when paying, and the Slagles are learning more and more interesting details along the way.

“I would say we already have some regular customers,” Reanna said. “We get to know a lot of people who work in the area and that’s nice because you get to know people, you get to know their names and faces. It helps us connect better with the people around us.”

Maybe not everything has changed in the world of corner shops.