Kelly and Kim Kessler are the new owners of Bowman’s Supervalu, which was renamed to Bronson’s Marketplace. Bigger changes are in store for the future.
By BRYCE MARTIN
Pioneer Editor | [email protected]
It only took Beulah market owners Kelly and Kim Kessler one visit to Bowman to decide it was the perfect setting for a new store.
When they approached the owners of Ken’s Super Valu last summer with an offer to buy them out, they saw the southwest North Dakota community was a good fit and began talks to finalize a deal.
The Kesslers, owners of Bronson’s Marketplace in Beulah, said they had a great first impression from the city and its residents.
“It’s a great town with a lot of nice people,” Kelly Kessler said.
While the city was new to them, they had already had a connection with Bowman’s Super Valu.
Kim Kessler’s father, Rich Bronson, started the Beulah store in 1979. He was actually good friends with Ken Sime, the now former owner of Ken’s Super Valu. Kim said she grew up similarly to Stan and Ron Sime, with her family also being in the grocery business.
The Kesslers bought Bronson’s from Kim’s parents in 2002.
“We’ve been looking for another store to buy, a good store in a nice community,” Kelly said. “Bowman seemed to be the right fit.”
No time was wasted in making plans to move the grocery store to a new location.
The freshly named Bronson’s Marketplace will find its new home on the west side of the Shopko and Ace Hardware Plaza on Highway 12. Bronson said the visual presence of being positioned on a busy highway would help attract more customers. The new location would also provide more ample parking and a larger market space to offer products and services not found at the present Super Valu.
It also allowed for larger truckload deliveries, which would help expand their product selection.
“We’re hoping we can bring a lot of the good things that we’ve learned (from Bronson’s in Beulah) to Bowman,” Kelly Kessler said.
In the meantime the store’s current location, on the corner of Main Street and First Avenue Southwest, would remain open and only slightly changed until the new location is constructed. The Sime family will still own the building.
Sime, along with his wife, Eleanor, and sons Ron and Stan, has owned and operated the Bowman Super Valu for 38 years.
They had become a cornerstone of the community and even received statewide recognition for providing accommodating customer service and possessing a community minded attitude.
Kelly Kessler indicated the Beulah store has similarly strong ties with its community, and that the new Bowman store would continue that tradition.
Along with a brand new building come bigger additions that Kelly said would serve the customers well, including a new full service deli, bakery and liquor store.
Kim said the produce selection would expand as well as the addition of smoked meats, from their smoke house in Beulah.
Nathan Brinkmeyer will serve as general manager of Bronson’s Marketplace. He and his wife, who will also work at the store, will be relocating to Bowman.
The new store, which will continue to operate as a franchise of the Eden Prairie, Minn.-based Super Valu, will still feature products that have been available to customers at the old location, including Super Valu brand items.
The Kesslers’s ownership became effective May 1. Construction on the new store is scheduled to begin next month and tentatively finished and open next May.
