West 10th Street Lost Its Grocery Store In 2022. Good NAtured Is Trying A Smaller Fix For Weeknight Dinner

Shannon Ward knows who she's cooking for. In an October interview with SiouxFalls.Business, the founder of Good NAtured described a parent who thinks, "I don't have time to cook dinner, but I don't want to go through a fast-food drive-thru." Ward's answer is a pan of something like baked ziti, picked up on West 10th Street, put in the oven and on the table in about an hour.

Good NAtured said in late October that take-home meals would start in early November at its small kitchen at 2501 W. 10th St., just east of Kiwanis Avenue. Ward calls the area a food desert. Several other efforts to fix that have come and gone on this stretch since 2022. They were each sized to a whole city. Good NAtured's version is sized to one neighborhood's dinner hour, and that difference is why it's worth watching.

Four years of fixes near 10th and Kiwanis

The gap opened on New Year's Day 2022. That's when the Hy-Vee at 2700 W. 10th St. closed at 6 p.m., as KELOLAND reported. Here's what has happened since.

The old grocery building didn't come back as a grocery. The Argus Leader reported in March 2022 that permits for the building of more than 40,000 square feet described a $4.1 million project called "Hy-Vee Regional Bakery & Pharmacy." A Hy-Vee spokesperson told the paper it would work more like a warehouse than a store and would supply Hy-Vee and Dollar Fresh stores across Sioux Falls and nearby towns.

Food is still produced at that corner, but plans filed in 2022 described a facility that doesn't sell groceries to shoppers.

The first effort to fill that gap came that fall. SiouxFalls.Business reported in November 2022 that Empower Sioux Falls planned a Fair Market satellite at 523 N. Kiwanis Ave., stocked with about 60 staples plus salvage groceries. By the end of December it was open, according to SiouxFalls.Business.

What Fair Market learned in two years

Fair Market West ran for about two years. In December 2024, the Argus Leader reported that the Kiwanis store had closed and that Fair Market was combining its west and east locations into one larger store in the former Family Dollar at 2511 S. Minnesota Ave.

Fair Market's own explanation, quoted by the Argus Leader from its Facebook post, is the most useful line in this whole history: "Our customers are coming from all over the city and over the last two years of piloting two locations we learned that there is not a specific geographical area that is served."

Fair Market's customers were coming from all over Sioux Falls, so it moved to one larger central store where it said it could offer more produce and keep products consistently in stock. That plan was built to serve the whole city, and the Kiwanis storefront closed as part of it.

The mobile market had the same citywide reach. When the consolidation was announced, Fair Market said a mobile food market was "fully operational," with stops listed by Sioux Falls Thrive. Sioux Falls Thrive's mobile market page now says the Eat Well Sioux Falls Mobile Market is closed and that the group is working on a new business model in hopes of bringing it back.

A kitchen that cooks to a week of orders

Good NAtured's take-home meals are aimed at one meal, dinner on a weeknight, and the schedule is built around it. Ward explained the cycle to SiouxFalls.Business:

"Say we're making baked ziti. On Thursday, we'll close orders, and Friday's prep day, and we'll know that we're making this many for meal-prep food, this many in a grab-and-go case and saving this much aside that we can offer here."

Fair Market needed shoppers from all over the city to keep a full store stocked. Good NAtured only needs to know by Thursday how many pans to make. Orders that come in by the cutoff tell the kitchen how much to cook, so a small operation isn't left guessing. The grab-and-go case and the dining room use whatever is left over.

Ward and her staff spent the summer, in her words, "figuring out the do's and the don'ts of the small-kitchen business" after moving last spring from East Eighth Street. The menu came out of that. Good NAtured opens at 11 a.m. Tuesday through Sunday, serving pizzas and paninis, grab-and-go sandwiches, and baked goods like muffins, scones, cookies and brownies. In the week of Oct. 20 it started featuring a daily entree. In the afternoon, the menu adds grain bowls, salads, soup, and fruit and vegetable cups.

Some of the sandwich names come from the move itself. The remodel taught Ward that the space needed firewalls. A sink she special-ordered arrived damaged, and the replacement was lost in shipping for several days. So the menu now has The Firewall, the Ode de 8th St. and The Sink.

The take-home meals can be made gluten-free, vegan or vegetarian. Ward also said that eventually all of the salad dressings will have a vegan base, including a Caesar made without anchovies.

The room that comes with the meal

A weekly order cutoff only works if people come back each week, and Good NAtured already has a regular crowd. Ward calls her regulars "Good NAbors." She told SiouxFalls.Business they welcome newcomers. The weekly calendar is part of the reason:

• Tuesdays: The BAM Institute of Civic Biodesign's Changemakers Social Project meets.
• Sundays: A Reiki master holds sessions.
• Third Sunday of each month: A makers market. In November that's Sunday, Nov. 15.
• Ongoing: Crochet groups, a bring-your-own-craft group that recently filled two tables, karaoke, and a jigsaw puzzle always out on a table.

Good NAtured doesn't serve alcohol, but Ward told SiouxFalls.Business that "sober bar" is a label she doesn't embrace. In her view, that label kept away people who still drink. "We don't serve alcohol, but it's not the 'why' of what we're doing," she said. She calls the space a third place, somewhere that's neither home nor work, where "anybody regardless of why they're there" can be part of it.

Families are welcome, and the new location has accessible bathrooms, accessible parking and low-top seating. The person who stops in on a Tuesday for a panini and the person who picks up a Friday pan of ziti may well be the same person. A small kitchen planning a week ahead depends on that kind of repeat visit.

Planning around the first weeks of November

If you live near West 10th and Kiwanis and want to try the take-home meals early, here's what to expect based on what Ward has described:

1. Order before Thursday closes. Thursday is the order cutoff and Friday is prep day, so plan your week's meal ahead. The simplest way to find out how to get on the list is to ask at the counter during a lunch visit.
2. Go after 11 a.m., Tuesday through Sunday. That's when the doors open. The daily entree and the grab-and-go case are there even if you haven't placed an order.
3. Mention dietary needs when you order. The kitchen has said it can make gluten-free, vegan and vegetarian meals.
4. Put Sunday, Nov. 15 on the calendar. That's November's third-Sunday makers market, and an easy first visit if you've never been inside.

The grocery building at 2700 W. 10th St. has been tied to Hy-Vee's bakery and pharmacy plans since 2022, and the discount grocery on Kiwanis was folded into a central store in 2024. Good NAtured's take-home dinners are cooked on the same stretch of West 10th, and how many pans it makes each week depends on the orders that come in before the Thursday cutoff.

At Merchant Home Group, we keep track of which corners in Sioux Falls are gaining places to eat and gather, and which are losing them, block by block. If a move within west-central Sioux Falls is on your mind and you want that street-level picture before you choose, put us to work.