Bread of Life Market to close doors next month

By Kelly Terpstra, kterpstra@charlescitypress.com

Shelly Tilton had a difficult decision to make.

She could operate at a deficit to continue to cater to her loyal customers at the Bread of Life Market – a secondary grocery store that sells scratch-and-dent food products in Charles City.

Or she could close the business that she first opened on Dec. 1, 2017. The store moved into the old Marzen building on South Grand Avenue this past October in an attempt to boost sagging sales.

Tilton made the determination this week to cease operation.

“I’ve had tremendous verbal support. Ultimately people need to shop here,” said Tilton.

She said the final day Bread of Life will be open will be Friday, Feb. 14, which happens to be Valentine’s Day. The following day, on Saturday, an auction will be held to sell off remaining items and pieces of the store like shelving and hardware. The lease she signed to rent the store’s space runs out at the end of February.

“It just comes down to the financials. We are a sole proprietor. Anytime there’s shortfalls, we’ve been covering it. We just don’t have it anymore,” said Tilton. “We were hoping that change of location, that things would become stronger. We haven’t seen the community support that we had hoped to see.”

Tilton said her store averaged about 40 customers a day, but many of them were only spending $5 to $10 a shopping trip.

“We just don’t have enough consistent sales,” said Tilton. “If people go ahead and actually shop for groceries and make this their first stop and then go to the other stores secondary, … (but) 40 people at $10 just isn’t doing it.”

Tilton’s reason for opening the store was to help area residents who fall in the gray area financially – meaning they earn too much money to receive assistance, but they still find it difficult to make ends meet. The term “bread of life” means feeding the hordes, and that is the store’s underlying mission.

“People who receive a lot of food assistance, they’re not the ones that shop here. They have their food dollars secured so they usually shop at Fareway or Hy-Vee and do the one-stop shop. They don’t have to worry about it, they’ve got their food money,” said Tilton.

Bread of Life first opened at 809 Wisconsin Street. That building is currently the location for North Iowa Lawn and Sport.

“We had stopped growing,” said Tilton. “We kind of felt like if we were in a more noticeable spot that would help us, but it just really hasn’t.”

She said the store will hold a liquidation sale with storewide clearance discounts up to 25 percent for some items.

Tilton worked with local churches and other organizations to  provide food assistance to residents of Charles City during the time her store was open. She said she wished she could have helped more and offered more voucher programs for those that needed them.

“This was never about me making it money, it never was,” said Tilton. “This is my ministry.”

In the end it wasn’t enough to get Tilton out of the red and into the black as far as bottom-line sales.

“I just want to end on a positive. We were happy to help the customers that we did. We do have a faithful following which we greatly appreciate.”

Tilton said she will return to nursing full-time after cutting back her hours in the healthcare field in an attempt to generate more business after the Bread of Life moved to its current location.

“I’m actually going to do some travel nursing to pay off a debt,” said Tilton. “I’m going to go ahead and get back to doing what I love to do full-time.”

Tilton’s advice for anyone who may want to open a store similar to the Bread of Life in the area is to get everyone in the community involved so they can help make the store a long-term success.

“If somebody could get this set up to where it’s more of a community-based or community owned, where the community as a whole has more of stake in it,” said Tilton. “We’ve had some great volunteers and we appreciate everything everybody has done. We wanted to be involved. We attempted to do what we thought was a good plan.”