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David City family brings old grocery store back to life
COLERIDGE – Those visiting a new Coleridge business may get sticker shock - but in a good way.
Buresh Meats, Coleridge’s newest business, is able to offer frozen meats, snack foods and other household goods at markedly lower prices by taking a page out of the playbook of giant retailers - buyin g at a volume discount directly from wholesale farms and packers, and passing those savings on to customers.
“We try to make it a one-stop shop but we know we’re still not going to carry everything. We just stick with what we can put our hands on at a price that we know we could be competitive,” Owner Scott Buresh said, from frozen chicken, seafood, pork and beef, alongside restaurant-style frozen appetizers like mini tacos, jalapeño poppers and onion rings.
Bulk packages of dry goods - pretzels, chips, alongside household items like paper towels and toilet paper also line the shelves at Coleridge’s Buresh Meats location.
One thing the family-owned business isn’t willing to skimp on is customer service.
“Ninety-nine percent of the people that come through our door leave happy,” he said. “They like the atmosphere. They like the savings then in turn they like the quality of the products that they’re getting from us,” Buresh said. “We pride ourselves on treating our customers in a Christian way and also treating everyone who walks through the door the same.”
Buresh Meats is open Tuesday through Friday, 9 a.m. to 6 p.m., and Saturday, 9 a.m. to 1 p.m. The business is staffed by six locals.
The Coleridge location is one of three owned and operated by the Buresh family - Scott and his wife, Mary, of rural David City, and their seven children.
It was son Andrew Buresh who found the location in Coleridge at the former Ken’s Home Town Market grocery store. The grocery store, owned by Brenda Whalen and James Roberts, closed in August 2024.
The quality of the building and available equipment, as well as the building’s price tag made it a good fit for a new Buresh Meats location, Scott said.
Buresh Meats, beginning about eight years ago, has other retail locations in David City and Columbus.
Scott Buresh comes from a varied background with experience working for large meat packers, manufacturers, as well as expertise in the HVAC field. He also worked as a supervisor for the bridge crew in Butler County.
The opportunity to open a bakery with a friend in Wahoo, then led to owning a meat locker there. The two friends then opened a catering business together. Then COVID-19 pandemic hit and essentially took much of the catering business along with it as people were directed not to gather in large groups.
Already operating a small, licensed and state-inspected meat business from his own acreage, the Buresh family decided to pivot and pursue that avenue more aggressively.
“We did and it exploded for us,” he said, with people driving in from out of state to stock up on goods. “We outgrew our acreage. People just kept rolling in and rolling in.
(It was) like a well-oiled machine with radios and taking orders and filling them and selling it with one little register in my garage. My dad was doing tra$c control because we had people lined up on our road to get in.”
The Bureshes moved the business out of the garage and into its first location in David City in 2002 and then followed with a Columbus store a year later.
The Buresh family attributes their success not only to their business model but also to their faith.
“Let’s go ahead and give this a try,” Buresh said of the decision to open the first retail storefront.
“We turned to the Lord and said, ‘You know, if this what you want us to do, help us out with this.’ We’ll keep running this and if it works, then it’ll prove itself,” Buresh said. “So far, it proves itself. We have new people coming through our door every day.”
Only being in business for a few weeks, the reception at the new Coleridge location has been incredible, Buresh said.
"I flipped the lights on and within five minutes, people started coming in,” Buresh said. “I swear they were watching with binoculars waiting to see the light go on.
We probably had 20 to 30 people here that first day. We had little ladies coming up and hugging you, telling you ‘Thank you for coming to town. This is what we needed.’ You know they welcomed us with open arms.”
