Darin Burreson has owned and operated small grocery stores for nearly 30 years in communities like Blanchardville, Belleville and New Glarus.
His latest store is in a more urban environment and is far from the only game in town. In fact, it’s in one of the most competitive grocery cities in the Midwest.
Burreson has purchased Capitol Centre Market, a 25,000-square-foot store at the corner of West Mifflin and Broom streets in Madison’s Downtown. But Burreson is no stranger to the retailer that opened its doors in 1983.
For the past four years, Burreson, 57, has lived a few blocks away and has been a regular shopper at the store, a prime food depot for UW-Madison students along with working professionals like Burreson and older customers who live in the neighborhood. He’ll be assisted in the endeavor by his daughter, Kensie Burreson.
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“And that’s one of the main reasons I’m coming in here,” Darin Burreson said of his daughter. “There will definitely be more traffic. That will be different, seeing different people every day. In smaller towns you see the same people.”
No changes are planned for the store, which will maintain its name and staff of 50 employees. The exception will be Mitch Eveland, who is retiring.
50 years in the grocery business
Eveland, 65, became just the second owner of Capitol Centre Market when he purchased the business in 2007 from original owners John and Peg Leemkuil.
Eveland built, owned and operated the Lake Mills Market in 2014, selling the store in 2021 to a subsidiary of Festival Foods. In 2019, he expanded Capitol Centre Market by buying the adjacent hardware store space. The $2.75 million expansion and remodel included a larger checkout area and a massive deli that serves up sliced lunch meats, salads, fried chicken and hot soups. The beer cave got bigger, the meat department, with two butchers has been expanded, and sushi is now made on-site instead of being brought in from a vendor.
The expansion, which enlarged the retail sales floor to 15,000 square feet, included new offices and a break room, more cooler and freezer space in the backroom and, on the retail floor, produce and dairy departments that are 20% larger.
“There’s more competition Downtown, and, in order to serve our customers better, I thought we needed to provide them with a deli and a bakery,” Eveland told the Wisconsin State Journal at the time. “To stay competitive nowadays you have to be able to provide more of what the customer wants.”
When Eveland purchased the store, there was no Fresh Madison Market in the heart of the UW-Madison campus, the construction of a Festival Foods on East Washington Avenue was nine years away, students made up the majority of his customers and Epic Systems in Verona had 10,000 fewer employees. Willy Street Co-op also had plans to open an 8,750-square-foot store across the street from Capitol Centre but ultimately abandoned those plans.
Eveland is one of the city’s most experienced grocery operators. The West High School graduate worked at Fauerbach’s Fine Foods and Nakoma Trading Post in Madison and spent five years with the Hannaford Brothers Co. food stores based in Portland, Maine, before returning to Madison to manage seven area Pick ’n Save stores for 14 years before their purchase by Roundy’s.
The sale of his store to Burreson comes just a few weeks after Metcalfe’s Market, locally owned for 107 years, was purchased by SpartanNash, a Michigan-based retailer with 144 grocery stores in nine Midwest states.
Eveland found the right buyer
Eveland wanted to find someone who would continue to buy its inventory from Certco, an independent grocery wholesaler co-op founded in 1930, when five retailers in the Madison area joined together to get lower prices through combined purchasing. Certco, with a distribution center in Fitchburg, now services more than 200 stores throughout Wisconsin, Illinois, Minnesota and Iowa.
Eveland found Burreson, who is a member of the co-op and since 2016 has owned Roy’s Market in New Glarus. Eveland, who will continue to own the Capitol Centre Market building and lease the property to Burreson, plans to spend some of his retirement volunteering at Madison-area food pantries.
“There was a very long list of people that were interested (in buying the store) but a very short list to work with,” Eveland said. “I think he’s going to do awesome. He has a very high-energy daughter that’s going to be very hands-on with the business, Kensie, and I think she’s going to do a great job.”
Darin Burreson owned a grocery store in Blanchardville from 1996 to 2009 and opened Burreson’s Foods in Belleville in 2009 but sold that business in 2022 to Tegan Counihan, Tanya Haessly and Bryce Haessly, owners of Piggly Wiggly grocery stores in Waunakee and Lodi.
The purchase of a store with 16,000 specific items in Madison creates a new opportunity.
“This is a very good location and that’s one of the main reasons I’m here,” Burreson said. “Even in smaller towns you’re kind of competing with the bigger stores because a lot of them work in Madison. But this is college kids, and this location works really well.”