Former Maranatha Market opens as Village Market in Spencer

A business that has been operating in the Spencer countryside for years will be reopening its doors under a new name and in a new place in the village of Spencer at the end of this week. A grand opening of the new store is planned for early March as the store gets settled into its new location.

Located at 212 S. Pacific St., the former Maranatha Market will be reopened as The Village Market on Feb. 26. It is a specialty grocery store with its own deli, cheeses, old-fashioned candies and other products, and store owner Martha Chupp said people have been very excited to hear about the store coming to town.

“They’re very excited,” she said. “We had hoped we could move in January, but it took longer than we had expected to finish remodeling. People were asking us, ‘When are you coming to Spencer?’” The plan to move the business to Spencer from its former location along County Road F began shortly after Chupp acquired the store from its previous owners in March of last year. As she took over, Chupp remained in contact with the former owners, who had a dream of eventually moving the store to somewhere in Spencer if they had retained ownership.

“I was working for the former owners and they were looking for someone to buy this store,” she said about her purchase. “I enjoyed working there and I thought the store could go on. We had talked at the end of March and I officially took over on July 1. The former owners had suggested (moving to the building in Spencer), they even checked into it for us and what the price would be. They would have liked to move to Spencer, but they had moved to Tomah and had held on to the store until they could get a new owner.”

After acquiring the former Harn’s Furniture store in Spencer, Chupp said they began remodeling the building in October to prepare for a 2021 opening. As the new space was more than twice the size of their old store, Chupp said they had to expand their inventory and remodel the building to allow them to grow in the future when they fill up their space.

“We didn’t start remodeling until October,” she said. “The new store, it’s bigger, we put a temporary wall in and we can take it out if we ever want to expand. We are also adding more products.”

By moving to its new location along Highway 13, Chupp said she hopes The Village Market will be able to attract more customers. When it operated as the Maranatha Market, she said the store was able to establish a solid customer base from the Spencer, Stratford and Marshfield area despite its location outside of town. With the store easier to access, she said more people will likely stop by.

“Since this is a very established business, I think it will go well,” she said on the store’s opening. “We are hoping to get more business, especially with the big highway here. Out there (at their former location) people had to make a point to go out there and stop in. I hope people will find that this is something that is a little different, it’s not just a regular grocery store.”

After Feb. 26, The Village Market will be open Monday-Friday from 9 a.m. until 6 p.m. and on Saturdays from 9 a.m. until 4 p.m.

CHEYENNE THOMAS/STAFF PHOTO