Hy-Vee

 By Bruce Shawkey

One of my and Dawn's favorite hangouts has become the Hy-Vee supermarket, located next door to our apartment. Not only do they have a great selection of groceries, but a nice cafe where you can get great breakfasts, lunches, and dinners. Even wine and beer if you would so desire. Every Thursday night for dinner, they serve a sirloin steak dinner with baked potato and vegetable for $10. You can barely make it at home for that. They have a hospitality gal who greets us every Thursday when we go there for dinner.

Hy-Vee History

Hy-Vee was founded in 1930 by Charles Hyde (1883-1970) and David Vredenburg (1884-1949) in Beaconsfield, Iowa, in a small brick building known as the Beaconsfield Supply Store, which is listed on the National Register of Historic Places (below right).



Hy-Vee, Inc. is an employee-owned chain of supermarkets in the Midwestern and Southern United States, with more than 280 locations in Iowa, Illinois, Kansas, Minnesota, Missouri, Nebraska, South Dakota, Wisconsin, with stores planned in Indiana, Kentucky, Tennessee, and Alabama. 

The largest Hy-Vee stores are full-service supermarkets with bakeries, delicatessens, floral departments, dine-in and carryout food service, wine and spirits, pharmacies, salad bars, HealthMarkets (natural and organic products) and coffee kiosks (Caribou Coffee and Starbucks). Hy-Vee's largest store in the United States opened June 13, 2023, in Gretna, Nebraska (near Omaha), with nearly 135,000 square feet of retail space. Even larger stores of 150,000 square feet are planned for Zionsville, Indiana, and Louisville, Kentucky. 

Hy-Vee's longtime advertising slogan, "Where there's a helpful smile in every aisle," was adopted for the chain's first television commercial in 1963. 

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