BROOKINGS – Jager’s Grocery, a presence in Volga on Kasan Avenue since September 1999, will close its doors Friday. 

Before that happens, there are bargains to be had.

“Everything we have left is going for 50 percent,” said owner-operator Jeff Jager. “We don’t have any meat left. The dairy’s just about all gone. About all that’s left is a little bit of frozen and some groceries.”

Jager and his wife Sharon started out in the grocery business in 1994. 

Their first store was in Lake Norden, where the couple still live; their second store was in Hayti, where they also purchased the town locker; their third store was Volga. A fourth store in Elkton “for a few years didn’t work out.”

The Jagers also bought a grocery store on Lake Poinsett at Siouxland. A few years later they bought a bar and grill there.

“We owned all of that,” Jager said. Now they’re leaving it all behind.

“I’m going to be 68 years old and I’m retiring. This is our last store,” Jeff Jager explained, noting that he and his wife have been downsizing their business assets over the past three years. “We realized it would take awhile for us to get it done.”

“This is our last one,” he reiterated. With fewer stores to keep stocked, he hadn’t been buying as much in volume. The Siouxland Bar and Grill was sold to their daughter and son-in-law.

Leaving buiness by choice

Jager said it’s tougher than it used to be to run an independent grocery store in a small town. 

“You take all the big-box stores, Dollar General and everything that everybody goes to.”  

Add to that a plethora of convenience stores attached to gas stations that sell such staples as laundry detergent, dishwashing soap, bread and milk.

And shopping habits have changed. People will pick up staple items at such places as those cited above, just because they happen to be there.

“There’s five places you can buy milk in town,” he cited as an example. “The shrinking food dollar and rising costs told me it’s time to retire.

“Not that the store can’t still make it. It’s just that at 68 years old, I decided I just didn’t want to work that hard anymore.

“But did they run us out of business? No. We’re leaving business by choice. That’s just the way it is.”

Need for a grocery store 

Jager did admit that “my percentage of the food dollar seems to be shrinking. And family sizes are going down, too, which may be part of that.”

“The thing about small-town grocery stores,” he explained, “there’s a lot of towns that don’t have them anymore.”

He noted that Volga “is a growing community,” adding, “I would guess there’s definitely a need here for a full-service grocery store. There’s been a lot of concern from a lot of patrons about what’s going to happen.

“The best I can say is we’re trying to sell it. We’ve got a reasonable price on it. Hopefully, it’ll sell; if it doesn’t we’ll end up dispersing the assets.”

He said some people have shown an interest in maybe buying the store; but so far there have been no firm offers.

“The community (of Volga) has been very good to me, and I want them to know that,” Jager said, looking back fondly on almost two decades of selling victuals in Volga.

“It’s been a real good store,” he added. “We’ve been very, very happy here. I’d like to thank all the patrons in the community for the last 19 years. I worked in the community before I bought the store. Years ago I worked at Land O’ Lakes. So I was familiar with the community before I came.”

For those coming to the sale, Jager advised that he’s accepting “every form of payment that’s legal.” Cash, checks, credit cards.

And what will he do in retirement? “Work on old cars,” he said. “I’ve kind of got that hobby.”

Contact John Kubal at jkubal@brookingsregister.com.

Register photo: Jeff Jager, owner and operator of Jager’s Grocery in Volga, checks out some of the store’s remaining merchandise. After serving the community since 1999, Jager’s will close Friday and leave Volga without a full-service grocery store. The store is up for sale, but no firm offers have been made.