Check-Out the New Aisles, Freezers, Deli
After August, 2024 setback, Woodbine’s Foodland Re-Opened on June 10
By Lee Zion, Editor
Harrison County Times-Reporter
Kenley Corbett, age 7, stands at the cash register Wednesday and strikes a dramatic pose. Her mother, Angela Corbett, snaps a picture.
“That’s the future,” said aunt Jennifer Corbett.
And now, after two years’ worth of work, that future has been secured. The Food Land supermarket in Woodbine reopened on June 10 after the place was rebuilt from the ground up in the aftermath of a devestating fire took out the community grocery store in Aug., 2024.
People came out — wellwishers, contractors, and a representative from Sen. Chuck Grassley’s office — to celebrate this important milestone.
This is a family operation. Dina Corbett runs the store with her son, John. The two of them were in the Missouri Valley store when she found out about the fire in Woodbine.
“The first thing I did was I came up here,” she said. “They came in and said we’ve got a small fire at the Woodbine store. But they said don’t worry about it.”
She decided to go to Woodbine anyway. The next thing she heard, additional fire trucks were called in from Logan and Dunlap.
“And then I’m thinking, ‘That’s not a small fire anymore,’ she recalled. “When I came up over that last hill on the highway toward Woodbine, I could see this big, billowing smoke, and I’m like, ‘Oh. Please don’t let this be Food Land. But it was.”
The original Food Land opened Oct. 11, 1945, at a different location. According to an ad blown up to poster size for the reopening party, two pounds of grapes were 19 cents.
Corbett’s parents, Lloyd and Bonnie Roundy, ran the place.
The supermarket was a family project back then. Just like it is now.
“They loved Food Land. They ate, lived and breathed Food Land. We all did,” she said.
As an only child, Dina continued the tradition. Even on family vacations, they would travel to Muscatine, Iowa, and work at her uncle’s store, she recalled.
“So that ’s what we did on vacation, was go to another grocery store,” she said.
Now she carries that tradition on with her family.
Corbett described how she feels now that the rebuild is done.
“Relieved – Because the whole project has been very stressful, just one decision after another. And some of them kind of heartbreaking, because we had to tear down the old store.”
She described some of the challenges of running this store and a sister Food Land store in Missouri Valley.
“There’s an astonishing number of people that you see in the store every day in Missouri Valley,” she said. “They just come in and shop for something every day.”
That stands in sharp contrast to the way she remembered it when she was young. People back then would come in with a long grocery list to buy enough items to last the whole week, Dina Corbett recalled.
Now, she plans to order more small-sized shopping carts, because the younger customers prefer that to grabbing a full-sized cart.
John Corbett, Dina’s son, described what the reopening means to him.
“Relief. Jubilation, yes. All of the emotions. All good emotions.”
“It’ll be nice to find some normalcy. The everyday,” said Angela Corbett.
“The normal chaos,” John said. “Normal chaos, as opposed to normal chaos, plus construction chaos. I hope the community enjoys it.
“They showed a lot of excitement,” Angela added.
“We’re very gracious that they have stuck with us and encouraged us through the process. ’Cause I know it’s been a struggle — people having to go out of town for their groceries. Hopefully we can earn them back to this beautiful store,” John Corbett said.
Austin Campbell, owner of the company GEN2 Construction, described the process. No part of the original structure survived, plus, the construction faced a lot of setbacks.
“That would be putting it mildly,” Campbell said.
The “getting started phase” was the hardest part. The contractors had to dig under the original footings and had to do an “overex” three feet down.
An overex is to over-excavate, and fill the site with clay or gravel, compacting the soil to make sure the site is stable to build on.
Campbell gave a shout-out to Johnson Steel out of Colorado, Dan from DC Electric in Missouri Valley, and all the subcontractors who stepped up.
His cost was $3 million, and the actual construction was completed in eight months, Campbell said. He noted that this was his first construction project as a business owner.s
“It turned out so cool,” he said. “I’m really proud of this.”
Jonathan Pladt, a spokesman for Sen. Grassley, called the newly opened Food Land “spectacular.” A great improvement over having to drive 10 miles to go to a supermarket in the next town.
“This is a fundamental part of the community. It’s great to have it back,” he said. “We are always happy when we see new businesses coming into small communities, and especially a business like this, that was here before and unfortunately met with a terrible accident.”
Pladt called Food Land “a cornerstone business.”
“It’s great to have it back open and serving the people in Woodbine,” he said “I think it’s fantastic. It’s always great to have small businesses in our small towns. This is going to be one that serves the town for years and years to come.”
Woodbine Main Street Member, Kelli Gray, added, “It’s exciting and honestly emotional. Having Food Land back means convenience, but it also means bringing back a piece of Woodbine’s heart. It restores a sense of normalcy and pride in our town. The fact that the owners never gave up and worked so hard to rebuild says a lot about their commitment to this community. I think people are genuinely thrilled to support them and see the store full of life again. What I missed most was the convenience of being able to run in and grab what I needed without making a trip out of town. But beyond that, I missed seeing familiar faces and those quick conversations with neighbors.”
Gray concluded, “The grocery store is so much more than a place to buy food—it’s a gathering place where neighbors run into each other and catch up. Having to drive out of town for groceries added time, inconvenience, and expense for many families, especially our elderly residents. There was a real sense that something important was missing from our community. Congratulations to everyone involved in bringing Food Land back. Woodbine is lucky to have them.”
