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John Oncken: Last-minute buyers save Barney's Utica Store

John Oncken
Correspondent for The Capital Times  —  6/19/2008 5:47 pm

Envision: 50 seconds remaining in the second overtime of a crucial basketball game. The 11th inning with two out and a 3-2 count in a baseball playoff game. Setting up for a 55-yard field goal in the rain with seconds left in an NFL football game.

That's about what the situation was a few weeks ago for Barney Lambert and Jackie Sperle, who had put their Barney's Utica Store up for sale. They were seeking a change in lifestyle after 30 years of running the historic store 13 hours a day, six days a week.

Although they had had many people interested in the store and on a couple of occasions were within a day or so of completing a sale, no one had actually committed to buying the property, and a deadline was looming. Barney, Jackie and the community were pretty much resigned to ending the 136-year history of the Utica Store, located at the junction of County B and County W near Cambridge in eastern Dane County.

Barney and Jackie scheduled a final open house and official store closing for May 31, to be followed by a public auction of the store, property and contents on June 7.

Would you believe -- the final day of business at Barney's Utica Store never happened? The auction was canceled. In the two weeks since, Barney and Jackie have moved out of the upstairs apartment and are staying with her sister at Stoughton. The store is under new ownership. All is well, Everyone is happy.

Here's the story -- all of it taking place at the last moment, at the final hour.

In the week or two prior to the scheduled closing of the store, Dwaine Sievers of United Country Applegate Realty in Cambridge, who had listed the store for three years got a flurry of calls.

"That's not unusual," Sievers says. "When people realize something is actually going to happen they react. Most of the calls aren't from serious buyers."

In this case, one caller was. Darren Mosman of Middleton called on behalf of himself and friends Dan Anderson of Madison and Lynn Peterson of Cambridge.

In short order, the paperwork and financing was completed and in a week or so after the scheduled closing, Barney and Jackie began moving out, the new owners began moving in and the "Utica Country Store" was in business.

The new owners present a varied but complementary background.

Mosman was raised in Iowa and has a business background, much of it in marketing and advertising. Recently he became the Wisconsin distributor of Envrio-Safe Refrigerant, a product used in air conditioners and coolers.

"I was looking for an office in the Madison area," Mosman says. "Farmers are among my best customers -- they commonly use air conditioners on their tractors, trucks and compressors. The Utica Store has an extra room that I can use as an office -- perfect!"

Dan Anderson, who is the store manager, was raised in Shell Lake in northwest Wisconsin and came to Madison after high school seeking work in the "big city."

Find work he did -- he has worked in apartment maintenance for 10 years in Madison. That means he knows how to maintain and fix mechanical things -- a valuable skill when you are involved in a store filled with refrigerators, coolers, meat and cheese slicers and other mechanical things.

Peterson works in the Building and Inspection Unit of the City of Madison Department of Planning and Development. He is a 1992 UW-Whitewater graduate familiar with land use, permits and building rules and regulations.

Perhaps most important to the new owners of the Utica Country Store, Peterson is a native of the Utica area. He was raised and still lives just down the road from the store and his family is well-known in the area.

His mother, Helen Peterson, was a popular Home Economics teacher at nearby Cambridge High School for 23 years. His father, Bill, was an early heart transplant recipient -- No. 15 -- at UW Hospital, and used the new heart for almost 20 years before dying in 2005.

The threesome have the makings of a group that hopefully will last as long as Lambert and Sperle did.

Of course, there are a few changes in progress at the store. There is the name change, nothing major, but something that had to be done as "Barney" is retired.

"We have contracted with local farmers to provide fresh produce," Mosman says. "Maybe we'll be a sort of local farmers market."

They have discussed putting in a small bait shop for local fishermen and selling fresh pizzas (Mosman's dad in Iowa makes pizzas). And, they are open to suggestions.

Oh yes, they have extended the store hours to seven days a week (for many years the store was closed on Thursdays) and the store will stay open an hour later to 9 p.m.

Ron Wethal of Stoughton, has been a Utica Store customer for a long time.

"I come for their sugar free chocolate milk," he says. "Besides my son Scott farms just up the road."

Wethal worked for the well-known Viney Farms in Evansville for 26 years and in recent years has owned the Stoughton Cab company.

Don Lathrop is happy that the store gasoline pump is still there even though it doesn't register beyond two dollars a gallon (you just double the figures). He's been a customer for a long time and is happy that the store will stay open.

The early response to the new ownership has been all positive. "Everyone is so helpful," Anderson says. "In many cases we don't know the price of some items, but they do."

The kids are really thrifty shoppers, " Mosman says. "They know the price of everything to the penny."

Mosman, Anderson and Peterson are happy they got involved in buying the store. "It was absolutely last minute," they agree.

They for sure realize that they have a lot of hard work ahead of them.

Fortunately, Lambert and Sperle left all the groceries and supplies, old photos and history. Yes, they took the life-size cutout of Michael Jordan that stood next to the dairy case for so long. "We just couldn't leave him," Sperle says. "He's part of our family."

Mosman, Peterson and Anderson printed a flyer proclaiming themselves as " 'The New Kids In Town' who want to continue the legacy of business and community and hope you'll adopt us into your neck of the woods."

Indeed the saga of the Utica Store continues but like a winning three-pointer, home run and field goal, the right people, skill and a minor miracle helped make it happen.

Visit the Utica Country Store and you'll see.

John Oncken is owner of Oncken Communications, a Madison-based agricultural information and consulting company. He can be reached at 222-0624 or e-mail jfodairy@chorus.net.

John Oncken
Correspondent for The Capital Times  —  6/19/2008 5:47 pm