Retirement and Back to the Basics: My Trip to the New Amish Bulk Food Store in Cuba Illinois

Friday, January 10, 2014

My Trip to the New Amish Bulk Food Store in Cuba Illinois

There used to be a Bulk Food Store outside Cuba Illinois but the people who owned the store moved back to their home town of Arthur Ill and the store closed. There was a couple interested in opening a store but wanted to build one closer to the main road to bring in more traffic, the other store was down a gravel road 2 1/2 miles.   Six months after the other store closed the new one opened. My husband and I took a trip down to check out the new store today and to pick up some needed items. A Bulk Food Store is the perfect place to shop if you are looking to buy in bulk and one ran by the Amish is perfect because they carry a huge variety of spices that you can't find at your local grocery store. They also carry a huge variety of item for cooking from scratch that are hard or impossible to find anywhere except on line. I also find their prices are lower than most chain stores and I LOVE to support my local community whenever I can.
The store was less than 1/4 mile off the main road (paved) and very easy to find. It sits right next door to the Amish hand crafted furniture store where we had custom made tables made for our living room a couple years ago. On the other side of the store is where the people live who own the Bulk Food Store. He has a very nice well kept piece of farm property where he raises over 150 hens and sells the eggs in his store. He was telling us that most days he can't keep up with the demand for fresh eggs.
In the spring he hopes to offer fresh baked goods like the other store did. He said there was an Amish lady nearby who was interested in baking items for the store. He also sells homemade candy just like the other store and it is made by his sister who also made the candy for the old store.   At the other store the owners baked the items and that store was ran by wife. This store is ran by the son of the man where we used to get our fresh milk. He is young so I'm guessing that his wife is home with the young children.
If you have an Amish community nearby I highly recommend checking out the Bulk Food Store and the other stores owned by the Amish. We have to drive about 45 minutes to this one but try and go every couple of months and stock up. The Cuba Amish community is very small and have about 6 different types of businesses open to the public and we enjoy checking them all out and purchasing items from them when we can. All Amish owned places are closed on Sunday.
The Amish community in Cuba are very friendly and talkative. There are some communities that are not but almost every Amish community we have visited are very friendly and some more talkative than others.
Address for this store is 20177 N Depler Spring Road, Cuba, Il (off Illinois Rt 95). They are open M-F 8-5 and Sat. 8-3.   Store owner is Andy Kaufman.

I had the owners permission to take the pictures as long as I did not take any of him.