Staff writer
A good grocery and deli is an important thing, a store able to bring people together over that most basic of human passions: sliced meats and cheeses.
Its removal can spell disaster for locals, who might be left with a corporate mega-chain as their only option for groceries, or at least be forced to drive much farther for quality food.
The Wichita Eagle reported in 2016 that 51% of Kansas’ 675 communities had no local supermarkets.
The future is not looking good for such businesses, either. One in five rural Kansas groceries closed between 2008 and 2018, according to the Rural Grocery Initiative at Kansas State University.
Fortunately for the people of Goessel, theirs continues to stand proud.
Goessel Grocery and Deli’s decades of history is reflected in its appearance. Art teacher Brian Stucky, now retired, painted the letters “GG&D” above the store’s facade back in the early 1980s along with his students. The colorful town logo and the slogan “Small Town, Big Heart” are painted on the store’s side wall.
The store is easily the most recognizable building on Goessel’s Main St., a street that includes the town’s city hall and a 120-year-old hospital, now nursing home.
The building has existed since the 1920s, according to owner James Janzen. Various merchants operated there before it consolidated into a food store under Mid-Kansas Co-op. Keith Banman bought the grocery from the co-op in the 1970s, renaming it Keith’s Foods.
After graduating from the university at the turn of the millennium, Janzen moved home to Goessel, joining Keith’s Foods as an employee.
When Banman retired in December 2020, Janzen purchased the store.
Inside, the store feels truly lived in, from retro tiling on the ceiling, to the antique cans and packages lining the walls, to a long table in the back where a coffee group meets to attempt to solve the world’s problems every morning.
“They don’t get very far, but that’s what they do,” Janzen joked.
The store’s defining feature is its meat case. Goessel Grocery and Deli offers a staggering 17 types of cheese and lunch meat each.
“We have people who come from out of city to buy our meat,” Janzen said.
In contrast, there are two types of bread, wheat and white.
Deli specialties include homemade smoked German sausage as well as sandwich spread, a pink paste consisting of chopped ham, bologna, cheese, relish, and salad dressing, optionally topped with potato chips.
The grocery is such a pillar of the community that it also houses Goessel’s only restaurant.
A Hunt Brothers Pizza counter was added to the store roughly a decade ago. Having fresh pizza to serve has “been great” for the business, according to Janzen.
Like most rural grocery owners, Janzen has struggled with increasing food prices and supply chain issues.
The business has shrunk in some respects. It is not able to cater as much as it used to, for example. Janzen has only one other full-time employee. But the closeness of the town means Janzen always will have a solid customer base.
“The town was really happy to see the store continue,” he said. “[It’s] really more of a community service than anything.”
Just don’t ask Janzen to get too passionate about the claim that his grocery has “the coldest pop in Kansas,” a rumor that has spread all the way to the official Kansas Tourism website.
“I think that was [journalist] Marci Penner,” he said. “I don’t know where she got that from. [But] she must have done her research.”
Goessel Grocery and Deli is located at 216 E Main St. in Goessel.