Meet the face of Luverne’s new Fareway Meat Market, Brian Tieskotter, the 6-4 Iowa native sporting a bow tie with his company polo shirt.
“We take pride in having quality product and quality service,” he said when asked what he’s looking forward to about opening the store next week.
Since February, contractors have been working in the former W-2’s Quality Meats building at Main Street and Highway 75 to retrofit the 2,300-square-foot space.
Fareway’s investment includes a 9-by-12-foot walk-in cooler, new frozen and refrigerated cases and upgraded infrastructure and cosmetic touches.
The building also has new siding, fresh paint, new signage, LED lighting on south and west, blackout glass, a new door and parking lot improvements.
A ribbon-cutting Tuesday evening will celebrate the improvements and usher in the first official day of the store being open on Wednesday, Sept. 21.
Tieskotter has been with Fareway for 17 years, but this is the first store he’s in charge of opening, and it’s the company’s first stand-alone Fareway Meat Market in Minnesota.
In addition to fresh cuts of beef, pork and chicken, the store will offer meal sides, some groceries and meat accessories, such as seasonings, rubs, marinades, wood pellets and charcoal.
Tieskotter received his meatcutter training directly through Fareway, first working in New Hampton, Iowa, which is near Protivin where he grew up on a dairy farm that also raised poultry, pork and grain.
Tieskotter said the right cut of meat properly trimmed makes a big difference in quality and palatability.
Fareway uses Duroc pork from Windom. “It has a higher fat content, which makes it more flavorful,” he said. And its beef is sourced from the Midwest.
Tieskotter most recently worked in Spirit Lake, but he has also been involved in Fareway stores in Humboldt, Sioux Center, Shenandoah, Sioux Falls, Storm Lake and Spencer.
“This will probably be my last stop,” he said about being in Luverne. “It’s a nice small town.”
He’s buying a home in Luverne and said he looks forward to skydiving at the airport and seeing an outdoor movie at the Verne Drive-In.
Fareway in Luverne will employ nine other people in various positions, most of them part-time, mostly in product preparation.
Luverne Properties LLC owns the corner lot building and has a two-year lease with Fareway.
Gary Papik is among six local investors comprising Luverne Properties LLC. He said he’s been holding out for a business like Fareway to come into the building.
“There was a lot of other interest in the building, but we waited,” Papik said earlier this year. “We knew it needed to be a meat market, because that’s what the people in Luverne were asking for.”
He said the location is also well-suited for a meat market.
“It is great when you can stop in quick to get what you need and get on to your next thing,” Papik said. “This location is ideal for that.”
He pointed out that W-2’s Quality Meats left town for staffing reasons and pending retirements, not because there wasn’t support for a meat market.
“The business was here, but they were at a point in their lives where they needed to leave,” Papik said.
If all goes well for Fareway with the small meat market, the company has an option to acquire property across the intersection to the southwest to build a stand-alone meat market store.
In addition to the Luverne store opening, Fareway, based in Boone, Iowa, is opening eight other Midwest stores this year and next year in Iowa, Nebraska, Kansas and Missouri.