MILFORD, Neb. - Less than a year after hosting a groundbreaking ceremony last summer, Milford’s Main Street Market officially cut the ribbon on its brand new location this week, formally opening the doors of a much larger building which is now the home of the only grocery store in town. 

The lot on US Highway 6 used to host a car dealership, but after Wednesday’s ribbon-cutting ceremony with Seward County, it’s now officially home to a place that has been built from the ground up to be the new site of Milford’s Main Street Market. It's designed to look like a barn, and there are some pieces of an actual barn littered around in homage to the history of the place and the community it serves.  

“We hired a lot of local people to help us with this – and I know they put their heart and soul into this as well. And just knowing that that entire entity of people – the volunteers who put the shelves up, the contractor that built the beams, the art teacher painted the duct work to look like a tree – they're invested,” principal owner Craig Bontrager said at his store’s grand opening Wednesday. “It still is kind of amazing that we pulled this off. And a lot of people in town can come in now and say, hey, I helped with that, and that’s cool. They understand what it’s going to mean for the community, going forward, not just now, but 10, 20 years from now.” 

Craig and Karen Bontrager first bought the original Main Street Market location in November 2021, but actually owning the store in the first place was the brainchild of their youngest child, Celia, who says her dream to one day own and run a small store of her own was inspired by her love of the small shops in her mom’s home in Pennsylvania.  

“I’d always visit the same ones every year, and I loved them,” Celia said. “It was always my dream to own a place like that out there, but during COVID I was in high school and I got a job at the Main Street Market with the old owners, and I just fell in love with it. So as soon as they were selling, I said ‘We have to buy that!’” 

“It’s exciting for us to see her happy. I can’t think of something much more joyful for a parent than to see their kids happy. And Celia is happy here,” Craig said. “I’m 56, I have quite a bit of gas left in the tank, but she will be the face of it at some point, so she’s got to learn some of it – and I’m still learning it. But to see her happy...I’ll look back sometimes and she’s smiling while she’s working.” 

Craig was born and raised in Milford, and after he and Karen met at Hesston College in Central Kansas they’ve ultimately returned to his hometown, where he jokes that he’s related to almost everyone. But he truly is directly related to many of the people that make Main Street Market run: Craig and Celia manage the day-to-day operations with Karen chipping in part-time, and the couple’s oldest daughters, Savannah and Sydney, stopping in to help when they can. Now that the Bontragers have run the place for three-and-a-half years, it’s truly become a family function, and an enterprise that will impact all of Milford, and the surrounding areas.  

“We got some money because this was a part of town that people wanted to improve. And that takes some time, and it takes some effort,” Craig said. “God put us in the position, he knew we were a high-energy family and he knew we were the right ones to do this. And we’ve just been so well supported – and yeah, there’s been some scary moments, but I can’t think of any really negative moments.” 

“We’re just excited to be able to serve our community, meet new people, try new things, and just have fun – it's very exciting,” said Celia. “It’s amazing how plans work out, and the fact that I get to work with my dad every day is amazing – I'm very lucky.” 

Craig describes his store as the Milford town center, a place not just for people to go to because they need supplies, but a place they want to be a part of. Main Street Market has an active deli and produce procured from local farmers; they sell jarred goods, baked goods, frozen goods and food in bulk. Physically, the store’s layout and selection are a marriage of Craig’s Milford ties and Karen’s Pennsylvania upbringing, strongly rooted in a shared Mennonite mindset.  

The new location in close to three times the size as the former store on Milford’s Main Street, just a couple blocks away, and Celia says the increased size and added shelf space were a major impetus for the family to begin building this new location last June, leaning on their own lived experiences in the old store as they built the new one from the ground up. 

“At the old store, we did everything in a very small space in the deli, and now we have our deli, we have a commercial kitchen, and then we also have a separate packaging area. So we’re just able to produce a lot more, and be a lot more efficient with our employees and with our time,” she said. “At the old store we would make maybe 50, 60 sandwiches on an average day, and now we make 100. Customer wise, probably double as busy as we were. We can tell with our feet – because our feet are more tired.” 

Main Street Marker has been a Milford staple for years. But now that the new location is fully operational – Karen said it took a large crew of volunteers less than a week to get the shelves stocked to a level suitable to officially open the doors – the Bontrager family and their team of about two dozen employees, most of whom are either part-time employees or completely volunteering their time to make the endeavor work, are ready to embark on their store’s next chapter. 

“I’m not trying to be Walmart. I’m not trying to be little Walmart. We’re selling higher quality products, and we’re selling it with character, we’re selling with experience,” said Craig. “If we can be the bright spot in someone’s day, because there’s a lot of sadness out there... people are comfortable here, and they look forward to coming here. And I want that to evolve into enjoying coming to Milford, and enjoy going to the other businesses in town. That’s what we want – we want people to feel good about their experience.” 

“We’re just a small town general store. We pride ourselves on quality customer service, just making everyone feel welcome and appreciated – because we appreciate everyone that comes. We just want to provide them a unique experience,” Celia echoed. 

Now that the new location has been open for business for a couple of days, the Main Street Market team is not slowing down. Up next, they plan to improve the parking options in front of the store, expand the sandwich selection to include paninis, host cooking classes, install a drive-through window around the side of the store, and construct a central community space to host local concerts and other events.