Fareway celebrates 75 years in Charles City

By Travis Fischer, tkfischer@charlescitypress.com

Fareway is celebrating 75 years in Charles City this year as long-time employees reflect on the changes to the grocery business.

The first Fareway store in Charles City, the 14th store in the state, opened up on Jan. 13, 1950, at the corner of Main and Blunt streets. The original building was destroyed in the 1968 tornado, but by then Fareway had already relocated to its second location.

Moving up and around the block, the second location opened on Feb. 2, 1964, at the corner of North Jackson and Ferguson streets. The grocery store stayed downtown for another 32 years until 1996, when it relocated once again, to its current location at 210 11th Street.

For 50 of the store’s 75 years in Charles City, Rex Schilling worked behind the scenes making sure that the store’s shelves stayed stocked with groceries.

Now retired, Schilling started working at the store in 1973 when it was still at its Ferguson Street location, and spent his entire career in Charles City.

Over his half-century in the grocery store, Schilling has seen countless changes and improvements big and small. From the addition of intercom systems to replacing static wooden shelves with adjustable shelving units to the game changing advancements of computers, the store he retired from two years ago is vastly different from when he started unloading grocery trucks in the ’70s.

“We got there at 5 in the morning and we were lucky to be done by 10 ,” said Schilling.

Today, thanks to 75 years of progress in technology and logistics, store manager David Lohse said, “We’re pretty much done with our trucks before the customers come into the store.”

Lohse is also career Fareway employee, recently celebrating his 45th year with the company. He began in high school as a part-time stock boy and has now spent the last 11 years in Charles City as the fourth general manager in the store’s 75-year history.

“It’s a good place to work,” he said.

With 95 years of experience between them, Lohse and Schilling marveled over how much has changed in their time.

Along with the advancements in technology and tools, the selection of the groceries has vastly changed as the store has expanded its offerings.

From the advent of the microwavable dinner to the ever-growing selection of ice cream flavors, today’s store offers products that weren’t even conceived when they started working there.

“Everything has expanded,” said Schilling. “There’s probably five or six times the cereal products from back then.”

“There’s so many more varieties of juices,” said Lohse.

For as much as things have changed, though, Schilling says he appreciates that Fareway has still traditionally been slow to adopt some of the latest technologies and trends of the industry, preserving a more personable customer experience.

“Fareway is all personal,” said Schilling. “That’s why we still carry out stuff.”

Which is not to say that new technologies haven’t been embraced. The COVID-19 pandemic in particular accelerated many changes both for customers and behind the scenes.

Since COVID, Fareway has rolled out online ordering, allowing customers to shop from their phones and have their groceries ready to go when they arrive at the store. Lohse said he was initially skeptical that Charles City would embrace the feature, but his store has become one of the top 10 stores in the company for online ordering.

“I didn’t think it would go over as well as it has,” he said.

As for the future, Lohse said he expects changes to continue and that the next 75 years in Charles City will bring as many new things as the last 75 has.

“I think there’s a lot of changing coming in just the next 10 to 20 years,” said Lohse. “I don’t know what it will be.”