03/13/2026
All the love for our small businesses! We feel the sting as well. And have only heard so many other business owners repeating this! Keep the dollars in your community if you can! We are all in this together! ❤️ Thank you to our regular supporters! There will be a brighter side! ❤️👏
PS- go get a meal at the Yankton store! Our son loves their burgers!
A note from Erin — owner of the Yankton Store
I want to talk to you honestly for a minute, the way neighbors do.
If you’ve been in lately, you may have noticed some things. Shelves that aren’t as full as they should be. We’re out of ci******es. Some slow days where the parking lot has more staff cars than customers. Maybe you wondered. I’d rather you hear it from me than fill in the silence with a story that isn’t true.
Here’s what’s true.
I bought the Yankton Store in the summer of 2024 because I couldn’t watch it close. It had been here longer than most of us can remember, and I knew what it would mean to this community if the doors shut for good. So I scraped together financing from multiple sources — not because I had a perfect plan, but because some things are worth fighting for.
I’m genuinely proud of how far this place has come in 18 months. Equipment fixed, vendor relationships stabilized, new products on the shelves, our pies leaving the pie case about as fast as we can get them in. We’ve handled staff changes, food supplier pricing swings, all the normal turbulence of running a rural store. The team I have right now is a team I want to keep.
What I didn’t fully account for was walking into the slowest months of the year this time, while the whole economy quietly tightened around us. I see it in what people order — more split plates, fewer extras, parents treating kids but skipping the thing they used to get for themselves. Nobody’s announcing it. It’s just happening, in small choices, all across the community. Every small business that depends on people spending a little freely is feeling some version of this right now. We are all more cautious. And cautious spending in a small rural community has a compounding effect that’s hard to explain until you’re living it from this side of the counter.
I’m not exactly in total crisis, yet…. But I am in a tight spot, and I think you deserve to hear that from me directly.
I also think you deserve to know that I am not alone in this. Right now, across Columbia County and everywhere like it, small business owners are sitting with versions of this same story. They’re quietly wondering if they can make it to spring, or the summer season that will pay back the bills. They’re not saying anything because saying something feels like weakness, or like bad news that scares customers away. I understand that instinct. I’ve felt it too.
But I’ve decided to say something instead. Because the other thing I know — the thing COVID taught a lot of us — is that communities can show up when they know what showing up looks like.
So here’s what it looks like for the Yankton Store right now.
Come in. Buy something from our retail shelf or our cooler. Those sales cost us less to produce and they help us more than you might realize. Be patient with our staff — they’re working hard and they’re human. If prices tick up a little or hours shift in the coming weeks, that’s us adjusting to stay viable, not a sign that something is wrong.
And if you’re in a position to do something a little more — buy a gift card. Use it slowly. Spend maybe 10% of its value each month and let the rest sit. That’s not charity. That’s how we helped restaurants survive COVID, and it works. To put it plainly: it would take $5,000 to fully restock our cigarette case, $1000 to restock all the candy, and another $2,000 to fill the other gaps you’ve been noticing. That’s it. That’s the immediate ask. Gift card purchases can do that work.
You can do the same thing for any place you love in this community. Your favorite coffee shop, your local record store or pet shop, the little restaurant you’ve been meaning to get back to. They may not be saying what I’m saying out loud. But I promise you, most of them feel some version of it right now.
The Yankton Store is going to be here. I intend to make sure of that, one way or another. But I also know that no community institution survives without its community. That’s not a guilt trip — it’s just the truth, and I think we are people who can handle the truth.
Come see us. We’re still here, together.
— Erin
