Building and Rebuilding!

* Rebuilding our Home
Exciting News! In September 2016, Downtown Grocery started rebuilding its original home located at 607 Third Street (see the rendering above) that's been closed since September 2015 due to the fire. The rebuild project will create a renewed experience inside a two-story space. We'll add seating on the second floor, build an addition in the back, and have more room to offer an even larger selection of foods that are unique, local, regional, certified organic, seasonal, allergen-friendly, and world-inspired. Thanks! Find updates at Facebook!

View construction photos that show the progress to transform our original home!

Creating a new two-story experience inside a completely renewed building provides more opportunities to connect people to place, to provide access to local products, to grow the economy, and to support local, Wisconsin, and Midwest farmers and producers thus keeping more monies and miles "closer to home.

Read more about our journey from the fire to the rebuilding at these News Reports.

What is Downtown Grocery? We're an Everyday Farmers Market featuring fun & interesting ingredients, great wall of spices, pantry essentials, and prepared foods --- from a walk-around food bar with hot bar, salad bar, and olive bar, plus ready-to-go selections such as hummus, dips, sandwiches, and baked goods --- "homemade in our kitchen!" Shop Downtown Grocery to try something new and find your favorites!

Downtown Grocery * Unique * Local * Organic * World-inspired * Everyday * Daily menu on Facebook

* Stay Positive
The kind thoughts and generous support from the community helped us Stay Positive through the recovery and rebuilding process. It's taken just under a year from the night of the fire on September 29, 2015, to September 20, 2016, to create a unique and exciting solution for a fire-damaged historic building. During our 12-month journey from recovery to rebuilding, we've moved through a range of lows and highs:

1. Understanding what just happened immediately after the fire, then planning what to do next
2. Beginning the clean-up process and creating a plan for a temporary location
3. Enjoying a fun time at the benefit event to help our displaced employees
4. Painting "colorful doors" for the "construction fence" at our temporary home, then donate the "doors"
5. Relocating and restarting the business as the "Market & Food Bar" at the Wausau Center Mall
6. Receiving recognition for "...inspiring the entrepreneurial spirit" from the Small Business Administration
7. Finally, announcing that we're ready to start construction to rebuild our original home!

Our wonderful customers, supportive community, and strong employees reinforced our good attitude, enthusiasm, and the drive to survive. This community of hope has been key to stay positive while we moved from the challenging process of the fire recovery to the emotional announcement that we're ready to start construction and "rebuild our home!"

* Building upon our Local Food Culture
Downtown Grocery is excited to start construction on a new experience inside an historic structure, circa 1901, to rebuild our home, to reinforce our mission, to deepen our commitment and investment in the community, and to create a renewed food destination located on "our Main Street" in downtown Wausau.

We're ready to refresh our original home to create an even better community gathering place as we begin our second decade offering foods that are grown, produced, and made "closer to home." From this unique perspective over the past ten years, we've seen a dramatic increase in the frequency of events and conversations about our food and farm culture --- discussions such as, where is it grown, what farming or production methods are used, how is it made, what are the ingredients, whom does it support, how best should it be prepared, what does it taste like, and why is it important?

Downtown Grocery is pleased to be one of the many dedicated supporters of the local food community (including farmers, producers, consumers, organizations, and businesses) that are all vital to grow food creativity in the region. Each of these supporters work to improve the community from their views, specialities, and initiatives while all work towards many of the same shared goals --- objectives such as, to connect people to place, to provide access to nutritious food, to be mindful of neighbors (in the city and country), to cultivate healthy ecosystems, to improve quality of life, to incorporate art & design for a greater impact, to be more self reliant, to grow the local economy, and to continue building upon our local food culture!

Let's move our "Stay Positive" message into "Building and Rebuilding" our connections in the community!

Thank you!
Kevin Korpela and Megan Curtes Korpela
Find updates at Facebook.com/DowntownGrocery