Uncovering old sign sparks grocery store memories

CEDAR RAPIDS - Just before Memorial Day, as workers prepared to demolish the flood-damaged building at 1500 J Street SW, a sign revealed itself that brought back a flood of memories.

The sign, well-worn with chipped paint, read "Kadlec Groceries and Fine Meats."

"There was a hole up there for the longest time," says Sue Rocarek. "I knew what was back there."

Yes, Sue, 62, remembers working in the store started by her grandfather, Wesley Kadlec.

"They'd get 100 pounds of potatoes," Sue says, "and I'd go crawl around in there and it was my job to pick out the rotten potatoes."

Sue (right) laughs along with her sister, Leslie Kadlec, 68, (center) and their cousin, Jan Means, 72, (left) all of Cedar Rapids. As kids, they all helped with the store but had fun, too.

Leslie, for instance, remembers going out on deliveries to fire stations. "They were nice to me," she says. "I got to slide down the pole."

And Jan recalls the aged meat. "They'd get these huge sides of beef," she says. "I'd hide in the cooler when it was hot."

The store was started in 1936 by their grandparents, Wesley and Mary Kadlec. Harry James, who married their daughter, Irene, was an early partner although he left in the 1940s to work at Linkbelt Speeder. Their son, Lester, a Seabee during World War II, bought into the store when he returned as did his friend, Gus Pesek, a trained chef and butcher. Lester's wife, Betty, the only one still alive at 91, also spent plenty of time at the store.

The three women - Jan's mother was Irene while Leslie and Sue were Lester's daughters - talked to Betty and met at the sign to take some pictures. That seemed natural as they flip through a pair of photo albums that hearken back to the early days of the store.

"One thing I did not remember, they delivered twice a day," Sue says, "They took the truck out and delivered to people in the neighborhood."

"I think the meats were famous," Leslie says, to which Jan replies, "All the women came into the store to get their meat."

Those were the days when grocery stores dotted every neighborhood in Cedar Rapids, when customers stopped in every day, when you could have the grocer put your bill on credit.

"My mother always remembered who hadn't paid," Jan says of Irene. "In the ‘50s, she could remember the names of the people who didn't pay in the ‘40s."

But, through the years, most of the customers were very loyal. They loved to watch the mister keep the vegetables cool and moist, bought feminine hygiene products re-wrapped in plain brown paper and loved to eat the Jatrnice (meat sausage) and Jelita (blood sausage).

"That was good, a treat," Jan says about sausage made with blood and barley.

"We had it at least twice a month," Leslie adds. "I used to eat the blood sausage because nobody told me what it was."

Because Weaver Witwer, developer of the Me Too supermarkets in Cedar Rapids, was friends with Lester, he promised not to build close to Kadlec's. So it wasn't until after the store was sold in 1960 to Ed Websters, who opened up "Ed's Rubber Stamps, that a Me Too went up near Czech Village,

"People could kind of see that the corner grocery store was going out," Jan says.