Convenience store headed for North Haines

A couple of people have asked me what’s being built at the corner of Haines Avenue and Kathryn Avenue in North Rapid.
I don’t have a lot of details, but I can tell you it’s going to be a convenience store.
Kathryn Avenue is the street that runs west from Haines just north of Mall Drive. Crews began work at the site a few weeks ago. It doesn’t look like much yet.
Developer Doyle Estes is building the new store and leasing it to Don Turner of Don’s Valley Market. They have a similar arrangement with the Don’s Valley Express on Cheyenne Boulevard off Elk Vale Road.
This story reminded me of Woody’s Convenience Market and Laundromat. These days it’s a vacant building surrounded by a very high fence. When I first moved here, Woody’s was a very busy place. It was like of like downtown Lakota Homes.

But the new Superpumper — I can’t think of its name now — and other developments cut into Woody’s role.

Now there are so many houses and new neighborhoods up that way, I have no doubt that another convenience store will do well. I’ve also heard that the new place might have a wider selection of meats and groceries than most c-stores.

OK, I left BJ’s Grinder King off the pizza list on my previous post. BJ’ got five votes…. and like I said, the best veggie pizza I’ve ever had.

My apologies to Cindy Custer.

I had a call the other day from Jeff Jundt, owner of JD’s Pizza in the Valley. “Are you having a contest?” he asked. “Some of my customers told me they were voting.”

I guess I didn’t think of it as a contest. I just threw the question out there. But I discovered that people have very strong opinions about pizza. Maybe Walt Banovic of Picasso Barn Pizza is right.  Pizza is more than food; it’s a way of life.

So I totaled up the votes –  er, comments — on the post from a couple of weeks ago. It’s by no means a scientifically selected cross-section of the community, but who cares?

The winners are:

JD’s Pizza got the most votes, with 13. After that we picked Nick N’ Willy’s 7, Big Time Pizza in Keystone 5, Piesano’s 4, Picasso Barn 3, Lintz Brothers in Hermosa 3 and Pauly’s 2.

Getting 1 vote each were Papa Murphy’s, Pizza Ranch, Beau Joe’s in Colorado, Sam’s Club, Pizza Lab in Central City, Papa John’s, Peppy’s, Bostons, Bottecelli’s, Minerva’s and the Gaslight in Rockerville.

Among the places no longer in business, Happy Joe’s was the big winner with 11 votes. Jerry’s House of Pizza got 2 votes. The Boys, Randy’s Pizza Barrel, Red’s Savoy Pizza, JB’s Big Boy and Hooky Jack’s each got one vote.

Several readers have been asking what the story is behind the mysterious, monstrous flagpoles that have cropped up lately in North Rapid and West Rapid.

They’re cell phone towers.

One is at 4616 Jackson Blvd, across from the Chapel Lane bridge. The other tower is just off East Boulevard North, behind the once and famous DD’s Bar.

Cell towers are often disguised to look like something other than cell towers. In Arizona they make them look like palm trees. In Rapid City, flag poles are often the disguise of choice.

I understand the Jackson Boulevard tower was not without controversy. In fact the Planning Commission rejected the proposal, partly on aesthetic grounds. But the city council overrode the planning commission.

Cell towers are an interesting battleground. Almost everybody loves their cell phones, but nobody wants a tower to ruin their view.

I remember one planning commission meeting a few years ago where people showed up to oppose a tower near Jackson Boulevard and Canyon Lake Road.

An older woman stood up and said, “I just can’t understand why people are always talking on those cellular phones anyway. Do we really need to be walking around talking on the phone all the time?”

The room fell silent. They were too polite to say, “Well, duh? Of course we need our cell phones.”

I think the poor woman lost that fight a long, long time ago.

When I finally broke down and got a cell phone in 2005, I called my cousin in Elk Point. He said, “Welcome to the 1990s.”

So is it NIMBYism? Or are there legitimate concerns about the aesthetics of a landscape festooned with cell towers?

I received an interesting e-mail from a reader the other day. He was responding to my story about how Spearfish has become a retail center for the Northern Hills.

Spearfish, if you haven’t been there lately, is second only to Rapid City in the number of stores — national chains such as Wal-Mart, and home-grown businesses like Nic’s Nax — and people from throughout the Northern Hills shop there.

The reader lamented that small towns like Newell, his home town, have suffered while the retail centers prospered.

“When I was a teen in high school at Newell during the late 50’s; we had 2,500 people living in Newell. We had 3 implement dealers, a lumber yard, 5 cafes, 5 gas stations, and 3 grocery stores. Plus a bank, bowling alley, and theater. It was a thriving business community. When the K-mart came to Rapid city, the locals said, it would kill the business in Newell. I guess it hurt some. I remember going to Rapid city maybe only 5-6 times in High School. The K-mart on North street was the first one I ever saw, and we ate at the first McDonalds near Baken Park, during the mid 50’s. I guess a burger cost 10c, frys 10c, and a coke a dime.

“I guess when the highways were improved, it cost the small towns like Newell; their customer base. There are only 600 or so souls living in Newell now. Makes me said, when I go over there during Christmas and see all the empty buildings.”

I’m not sure how small towns can compete. I had a weird fantasy that with $3 gasoline, people might start shopping closer to home. Maybe retail will become more decentralized, and small towns will be better able to support a Duckwall’s, an ALCO or even a Hardware Hank.

But high gas prices could in fact have the opposite effect: people will have to move closer to Spearfish and Rapid City because they can’t afford the commute.<>

So where do you think we’re heading as a region?

In Talking Business last week I wrote about Anytime Fitness, a soon-to-open fitness center in the new Market Square strip mall on St. Pat near Cambell.

It should be open in late January, according to Nicole Sullivan, the franchisess.

Anytime Fitness is a 24-hour fitness club, meaning you can use your passkey to go in and work out at 2 a.m. or when ever the urge strikes you.

It will be the second 24-hour place to open  in Rapid City.  The first one is Snap Fitness in the Stoney Creek Plaza on Sheridan Lake Road near Catron.

Both owners insist that their facilities are electronically monitored and very safe.

I’m sure they are, but it would seem a little strange — especially for women — to be working out alone in the middle of the night.  For one thing, you’d have to cross a parking lot to get in. And who knows who might be sweating on the next machine.

Am I being overly paranoid about this?

This week in Talking Business I reported that Picasso Barn Pizza on West Main Street is moving to the new Tuscany Square shopping plaza on Omaha Street.

Tuscany Square and Italian pizza. Seems  like a good fit.

Owner Walt Banovic said his shop’s customers have been giving him great reviews, especially those from the East Coast, where, he said, “pizza is more than a food. It’s a way of life.”

That got me to thinking — and I hesitate to even ask — but which Black Hills pizza do you think is the best? And why?

The reason I hesitate to ask: Several years ago, before I was here, the newsroom did a group review of all the pizzas in town. Afterward, the angry calls and advertising boycots were fairly unpleasant, from what I’m told.

In fact, the pizza contest is why the Journal to this day has never carried a restaurant review column.

We do have the best-of-the-Black Hills write-in contest. And BJs Grinder King generally wins the pizza category. But numbers don’t get to the question of why?

So tell me: Which pizza is best?

Kevin Jensen’s comment in the Robbinsdale post, which mentioned the 1967 bank robbery, reminded me of a story that Kirk Dean, former Rapid City president of Norwest (now Wells Fargo) told me several years ago.

Kirk wasn’t sure if it was true, but it’s still a great story.

He said the bank in the Robbinsdale Plaza had been robbed on more than one occasion. So when the bankers decided to move to a new branch, they told the architect to design a building that would make would-be robbers think twice.

The result, the Wells Fargo Robbinsdale branch at 1035 E. St. Patrick. With its big, concrete pillbox-looking structures, it’s definitely imposing. It looks like an armored car on a foundation.

Bankers jokingly called it Fort Robbinsdale.

But you know what? It’s never been robbed.

Earl Grabowski is movin’ on up to the East Side. The owner and operator of Earl’s Barbershop, 3445 Sturgis Road, is moving his business to 405 Robbins Drive.

It’s where Harley’s Barbershop used to be. Harley Leslie is retiring after early 52 years of cutting hair. “I had a shoulder operation, and I was out for three months,” Leslie said. I finally decided to heck with it.”

The location, if you’re not familiar with Robbins Drive, is in the Robbinsdale Plaza on St. Pat near the intersection with Elm Ave. There’s been a barbershop in that location more than 50 years.

I’ve always been kind of fascinated with that section of St. Pat. At one time, it must have been downtown Robbinsdale. Terry Nelson, who grew up in Robbinsdale, told me that the area once hadt two grocery stores — Safeway and Red Owl — the Sioux Drive-In theater, a bank  and a number of other shops and stores.

Safeway went west. Red Owl became Piggly Wiggly, then went out of business. And at some point Sooper Dooper and Family Thirft Center built stores farther east.I tried to find an old photo of that area in its heyday, but I came up empty. If anybody has a photo, I’d post it here.