Nordic Grocery: Small-town store in Felch under new ownership
Business showcase
FELCH TOWNSHIP — Much of the Felch area is a good 20 to 30 miles from Iron Mountain. So what to do when a recipe calls for sour cream and none is to be found in the household?
Or when those at a hunting camp lack gloves — and perhaps a saw — for dividing up that deer?
Nordic Grocery likely has something that will fill the bill and save a trip to the city.
The business off M-69 west of Felch at N7741 Norway Lake Road might well be no bigger than the average gas station convenience store, but it packs a lot into its limited space.
That’s by design, said new co-owner Kristy Anderson, who worked at the store for the past year and a half before taking over Dec. 22 along with husband Brian “Vern” Anderson.
“We try to keep on hands things the community might need,” she said.
Such as basic medications and Pedialyte for a sick child. Frozen lasagna and pizza to prepare a quick meal. Sunflower seeds and suet cakes for feeding the birds. Coloring books with crayons and colored pencils. Even $1 cards, wrapping paper and all the fixings to make a cake for an impromptu celebration.
It also keeps the essentials: gas at the pumps, snack foods, beer and other beverages, eggs, dairy items, paper products. In a nod to the region, the refrigerator case has a couple of rutabagas if pasties need to be whipped up.
Hunting and fishing seasons brings visitors and locals who not only buy licenses at the store but also stock up on supplies or bait.
“We get a lot of people who have been coming in for years,” Kristy Anderson said.
Ron and Marsha Hord established the business in 1986 after the grocery store in Felch that also had Marsha’s hair salon closed.
“We couldn’t afford to build the building for just the beauty shop,” Marsha Hord said.
For 32 years they adapted the store to what the community needed, adding the fuel pumps and stocking new items if there was a demand, Hord said.
“The people have always supported it,” she said.
Finally ready to retire, they’d contacted the Andersons, who had expressed interest a couple years earlier. “Vern and Kristy are excited, and I think they’ll do very well,” Hord said.
Kristy Anderson originally came from Chicago, following her parents, Jim and Marge Brogan, who long had a vacation place in Hardwood that now is their permanent home.
It was a major lifestyle adjustment, she admits, especially the winters. But her dad was a Chicago police officer, so while she had a good job in the Chicago area, she decided after her divorce that the Upper Peninsula would provide a better environment and education for her two girls.
“And,” she said, “I fell in love.”
She met Brian, an employee at Louisiana-Pacific in Sagola, while working at Solberg’s restaurant in Felch. The son of Vernon and Janice Anderson was born and raised in Felch Township.
The couple has been married about a decade and live on Groveland Mine Road, where they have cows, chickens and two Labrador retrievers, yellow Dixie and chocolate Lincoln.
Their two daughters, 19-year-old Haley and 18-year-old Brogan, graduated from North Dickinson County School District and work at the store when not attending Bay College.
They hope to add a coffee shop in the near future, in the space that formerly was the hair salon, along with an expanded selection of supplies for outdoors and camp.
One big change that will come sooner is the store will begin accepting credit cards. That will better cater to those from outside Felch who often don’t carry cash, Kristy Anderson said.
The store remains open seven days a week, 7:30 a.m. to 6 p.m. Monday through Saturday and 9 a.m. to 4 p.m. Sunday.