ALL IN THE FAMILY

Forty-two years ago, his Grandpa Ted took over Ferd’s Market and renamed it Ted’s Market. Ten years after that, his dad, Bob, took over Ted’s Market and renamed it Bob’s Clover Farm. Today, Brett Pidde is the man in charge at Jamboree Foods, and nobody would have it any other way.

JEREMY WALTNER – PUBLISHER

A comment like, “I always knew I’d come back home,” would have been a sweet poetic touch that the writer might have used to kick things off, or perhaps as a fitting coda at the end of the story.

But Brett Pidde didn’t always know he’d come back home.

After graduating from Freeman High School in 2007, the community native spent three semesters at Black Hills State before, in 2011, graduating from South Dakota State University with a degree in geography and GIS (Geographic Information System).

No, it wasn’t until he spent one summer working on digital mapping projects on the Pine Ridge Indian Reservation that his want to return to his home community began creeping in.

“You realize the nice things about home after you’ve been away for a bit,” says Pidde, his words coming out in the calm and measured approach he appears to take to everything.

That led to a chat with his dad, Bob, the second-generation owner of Jamboree Foods on Freeman’s Main Street, and asked about coming back to work at a store where he remembers as a little boy pulling off and playing with items on the lowest shelves, the only ones within reach.

“I was surprised, actually, when he asked what I thought about him coming back and helping in the store,” said Bob. “It was a great moment for me to have that happen.”

Brett did come back — in the fall of 2011 — and 14 years later, he is now a third-generation owner of one of the friendliest, coziest small-town grocery stores you will find anywhere.

Brett and his wife of six years, Kelsey, took over ownership of the store on Jan. 1 of this year, and Bob couldn’t smile more if he tried.

“It’s just a pride thing,” he says. “I take it over from my father and Brett takes it over from me, and now this great grocery store will continue to go on and on.”

A generational thing

It really is a great story.

It was the spring of 1973 and Bob was a sophomore at Freeman High School when his dad, Ted, took over Ferd’s Food Market from Ferd Walter in the southernmost block of Freeman’s business district — a building that was last home to Dollars & Cents and now sits empty.

Ted had spent the previous 20 years working for Laber’s Meat Market and Locker Plant in what was the oldest building on Main Street that has since been replaced by the landscaped greenspace between Vintage Vault Floral and Strasser Law Office.

Ted Pidde Sr., right, is pictured with Bill Morefeld, center, and Leo Laber inside the Freeman Meat Market in this undated photo. Morefeld purchased the building in 1930, with Laber becoming manager in 1948. Laber purchased the operation in 1974 — one year after Pidde assumed ownership of Ferd’s Meat Market and renamed it Ted’s Market. COURIER ARCHIVES

Bob was just a boy at the time and remembers it well — and for good reason. Not only did he and his friends spend time horsing around outside, but Ted, his wife Delores and their two sons, Bob and Ted Jr., lived on the second floor of the butcher shop.

The influence of being so closely tied to a meat market undoubtedly had an impact on Bob, who worked for his dad after school his last years at Freeman Public and then, after graduating from South Dakota State University in 1979 and spending several years teaching in Artesian, he returned to Freeman with his wife, Karen, in 1983 to take over the store on the heels of Ted’s want to retire.

And, with the shift from Ted’s Market to Bob’s Clover Farm, so began Bob’s growing business — and growing family.

Two years after Bob and Karen took over ownership of the downtown grocery store, Nikki was born, and three years after that, in 1988, along came Brett. And Bob’s Clover Farm continued to operate out of the quaint building in which Ted worked — a continuation of a family business that now included a third generation of Piddes.

Brett has only faint memories of that old store, but much stronger ones of the new quarters that came in 1994, when Bob joined the Jamboree Foods grocery franchise and moved one block north and across the street to its current home.

The building that doubled the size of his business footprint had previously been two clothing stores, The Carriage House and Village Toggery before that, but was longest known as a business operated by two Kutcher brothers called K&K, a general goods store that operated in Freeman from 1910 to 1973; a stone marker out front freezes the building in time.

Brett was six when the move came and remembers tagging along with his mom when she went to the store to help out, and “messing with stuff on the shelves, kind of like Milo does now.”

Milo is Brett and Kelsey’s 2 ½ year old son and the fourth generation of grocery-store Piddes — and he’s not alone. Milo is joined by first cousins Jackson and Grayson, the 8- and 4-year-old boys of Nikki and her husband, Tyson Leite, who live in Brookings but make frequent visits to Freeman and Jamboree Foods.

“Since the boys were little, my mom has been sewing little green hats and little green aprons, and they all have their name tags,” Nikki says. “It’s pretty special.”

Talk about full circle!

Brett Pidde and his dad, Bob, are pictured with the next generation during the Christmas season two years ago. Brett is holding his and Kelsey’s son, Milo, now 2 1/2 years old; and Bob is holding grandson Grayson, now 4. Standing is Jackson, now 8. The older two boys are the children of Nikki (Pidde) and Tyson Leite, who live in Brookings.
PHOTOS COURTESY OF NIKKI LEITE

Nikki’s mind easily falls back to her growing-up years as a child of a grocery store owner, and how much fun the family had — a family that to this day continues the tradition of putting together Christmas sacks for area churches.

“I remember when we were really little we had family night on Monday nights and we would all go to the store,” she says. “My parents would be working and we were too young to work, but we were all there, spending time together as a family. I remember Brett lining up all the candy bars in a line — it was really special.”

Like Brett, Nikki remembers working at Jamboree Foods when she was a teenager, spending afternoons after school and summers at the store, and how Ted would frequently drop by to help carry out groceries, even though he was long off the clock.

“And my grandma would come in and sit there and talk,” she says. “Yeah, it’s just a special place for our family and has a special place in my heart.”

There is one other constant in all of this outside of the Pidde family: Dawn Wollman, an employee whose time at the store goes back 45 years.

“I started with Ted, and then Bob, and now Brett,” says Wollman, a 1979 graduate of Freeman High School who started at Ted’s Market when she was 20.

“Ted was an amazing boss, and then Bob came in and continued that, and now there’s Brett, and he’s amazing, too,” she says. “It’s been a lot of fun and they’re like family because I’ve worked with them all for so many years.”

Nikki uses the word “family” to describe Dawn and all the staff at Jamboree Foods that has worked there over the years. In fact, she says, her dad made the rare decision to shut down the meat counter on her wedding day in June of 2012 so more staff could come.

“I tried to get him to close the store so everybody could come,” Nikki says, “but I didn’t win that one.”

Wollman says it’s that kind of hard work and attention to customer service that is at the core of who the Piddes are, and that makes Jamboree Foods such a special place to be.

“It’s the time and effort they put in,” she says. “They really do care about the customers and taking care of the store and the people who shop there.”

“I’ve learned how to treat customers — how to treat people,” Brett says. “To be friendly. To provide good service. To be personable. That’s important and makes a small town what it is. People like being greeted by name.”

“He’s just an awesome people person,” Nikki says of her dad. “He makes everybody feel special and always has a smile on his face. He got that from his dad.”

And she has seen firsthand customer service like none other.

“Behind the scenes I have seen my dad get calls on holidays to open the store because they forgot a grocery item, and without a thought he did it, because that’s the type of person he is,” she says. “My grandpa, dad and brother all carry on that legacy of friendly customer service for a community they love. Each learned from the one before them about hard work and making people feel special.”

“We strive for that,” says Brett. “It’s something I learned from my dad, and I think he learned that from his dad.”

A new era

Brett is grateful he has had the opportunity to work at the store all these years.

“When grandpa made the decision to pass the reins, it was a quick decision my dad had to make,” he says. “I’ve had the last 14 years to work alongside my dad before switching the ownership, and I really appreciate that. You learn a little bit all the time, and pick up more responsibilities all the time.”

“It’s very special,” Nikki says of her brother taking over the store. “It’s funny; my husband and I were just talking about this. OK Brett, does this still mean every time I come back to town, I get the free Mt. Dew and Snickers bar, or is that gone?”

The answer, she says, was a smile.

“I’m pretty sure we’ll still get the five-fingered discount,” Nikki says, smiling through the phone. “I’m just really happy for Brett and that it stays in the family; he obviously loves the work, too. It’s not a job if you love the work every day.”

Brett says he and his dad have been talking about the takeover for the past five years, “but there was never any pressure for it to happen,” and he recognizes how fortunate he is to work in a family operation.

“Not everybody gets an opportunity to work with their parents,” he says. “Outside of farming, it’s pretty rare and pretty special.”

And Brett notes there are numerous multi-generation businesses in Freeman, like Kleinsasser’s and Ralph’s Feed, not to mention Fensel’s, Rural Manufacturing and, most recently, Saarie Auto Body.

“There’s a lot of them,” he says. “I don’t know if that’s unique to Freeman, but it’s neat to see.”

Bob certainly thinks so, and he will most certainly cherish his later years of work, still behind that meat counter with that endearing personality, still doting on his grandsons, watching his son in charge.

“I just want to say how proud I am of Brett and the job he’s done,” he says. “He’s the type of person who’s going to continue running the store the right way.”

“It’s just a joy,” Bob continues. “Nikki’s boys can’t wait to get to Freeman and come down to the store, and now Milo comes down practically every morning to see me before he goes to daycare.

“It’s so much fun and makes me so happy.”