Iowa-based chain purchasing longtime south Kansas City grocer McGonigle’s Market

Fareway Stores Inc., an Iowa-based grocery store chain, is acquiring south Kansas City’s McGonigle’s Market.

The family-owned and operated business has 122 grocery store locations in Iowa, Illinois, Minnesota, Nebraska and South Dakota, and 12,000 employees.

Fareway officials said the deal will close later this month and the name will change to Fareway Meat Market. The purchase price was not disclosed.

In an email to customers, McGonigle’s owner, Mike McGonigle, announced the sale with a “mix of emotions.”

“I have no regrets,” he wrote. “I am proud of the business that I built. I am proud of the employees I have supported and who have supported me. I am proud to have survived as an independent retailer in the age of box stores and internet groceries.”

He said it had grown harder to keep going in this highly competitive world, and after some health issues in 2015 he began looking at an “appropriate transition” for the store, which is at West 79th Street and Ward Parkway.

The store is set to close around Feb. 21, and McGonigle has already started liquidation. It is scheduled to reopen in early March as Fareway Meat Market.

The McGonigle’s name won’t completely go away: Its deli and barbecue operation — which offers to-go and catering options — will be owned by Fareway, but operate as McGonigle’s Kitchen + Catering BBQ.

The news comes just days after McGonigle received city approval for a redevelopment of his beloved south Kansas City store.

The owner sought city approval to tear down five homes to the south — one he uses for offices and storage, four that he rents on month-to-month leases. He planned to demolish the current store and build a new, slightly larger McGonigle’s as well as a new structure for McGonigle’s to-go and catering businesses.

On Monday, he said Fareway approached him last fall as he was going through the approval process.

But his proposal at City Hall never mentioned the possibility of new ownership — or a new name.

“I don’t feel like I misled the council in any way. Fareway is going to continue our legacy in the same manner,” McGonigle said.

Fareway is a family owned company based in Boone, Iowa, about 50 miles northwest of Des Moines. The supermarket chain is best known for its extensive meat counter. Fareway stores are decidedly smaller than the massive big-box operations of competitors like Hy-Vee and Price Chopper. And the chain is old school: Employees wear white paper hats and deliver groceries all the way to customers’ cars.

The chain’s meat counter was so successful that it spun off a smaller meat market concept — those have already opened in Omaha and Lincoln in Nebraska and Ames, Iowa. The redeveloped McGonigle’s store will be the chain’s fourth standalone meat market.

In Kansas City, Fareway promises to offer expanded seafood, artisan cheeses, high quality wine and craft beer. The Iowa company has pledged it will continue honoring McGonigle’s gift cards.

This is Fareway’s first entry into the Kansas City market, but the company didn’t say whether it plans more stores here.

“As we explored entering Kansas City, McGonigle’s was exactly the right fit for us,” Fareway President and CEO Reynolds Cramer said in a statement. “Its reputation for product excellence is well known. But it has also partnered, complemented and served its neighborhood and area residents with excellence for two generations. We will continue to build on these foundations for years to come.”

Mike McGonigle’s great-grandfather first opened a wholesale meat company in the West Bottoms in 1882. His father, Bill, founded McGonigle’s Market at the current site in 1951, sharing the space with a drug store at a time when it was beyond the city limits, he said.

“Ward Parkway as we know it did not exist,” McGonigle said at a Jan. 15 Kansas City Council committee meeting. “It was a neighborhood grocery and drug store and was kind of out in the county as they said at the time.”

He started working there after school as a 12 year old. At 19 he left college to run the store for his father after the general manager died in a house fire. It wasn’t long before he bought out his dad. The store has built a loyal following for it premier meats, which it ships across the country.

In seeking approval for a redevelopment plan, he told council members that a new build would allow the store to better conform with Kansas City’s boulevard and parkway standards. McGonigle’s plans included doubling parking, adding green space and landscaping, improving infrastructure like curbs and sidewalks and hiding its dumpsters from public view.

“Obviously what’s in it for us is an updated, energy efficient building, an architecturally appropriate building,” he said. “And we feel like this investment we’re making will increase property values for the neighbors. We have talked to the neighbors. We did our required neighborhood meetings and received nothing but support for the project.”

That meeting included no mention of an ownership change.

Councilwoman Andrea Bough said she attended a meeting with local neighbors, who all championed the redevelopment.

“One of the questions that was asked was how soon can you start,” she said.

She said at the time that she had no questions of the developer, “but I just want to voice my full support for this. McGonigle’s is obviously a huge asset not only to the 6th District but to the city as a whole. It has been a staple in this city for a long time.”

The plan received approval from the council’s neighborhood planning and development ccommittee. And the full council unanimously approved the measure Jan. 23.

On Monday, Bough said she was surprised by the company’s announcement.

“I certainly wish I would have known that,” she said. “Because the things I said in supporting McGonigle’s were based upon the history and it continuing on. ... Whether it would have made a difference on the plans, I can’t really say.”

Bough said much of the neighborhood support for the redevelopment was based upon McGonigle’s history there and the store’s longstanding relationship with neighbors.

She said she hoped the new owner would continue the tradition of serving as a neighborhood market.

This story was originally published February 3, 2020 at 2:52 PM.