The business originated in Plymouth in 1917 as a meat market run by Math Lauer.
Daphne LemkeFond du Lac Reporter
FOND DU LAC – Fond du Lac has several grocery stores, but its past is filled with many more.
"If you're originally a small-town person, grocery shopping at a large food store can be a traumatic experience," The Reporter read in 1993. "So much food. So many choices. You don't know where to look first."
Lauer's Food Mart, the article continued, was known in Fond du Lac for being neighborly at both its locations, with an emphasis on customer service and small personal touches at a pair of stores where "less is more."
The business originated in Plymouth in 1917 as a meat market run by Math Lauer, according to The Reporter archives. The Lauer family then opened a Waupun location in the 1960s.
In 1965, Math Lauer's son, Francis Lauer, bought property in Fond du Lac for a new market, with the promise of relocating his family to the city.
Lauer's Food Mart opened the next year on West Johnson Street. For its first few weeks, the store offered $5,000 worth of grand prizes, as well as a rose for the first 3,000 women to visit the store and free ice cream for everyone the first week.
A motto of the store was "Quality so high you'll never notice you paid less," and this location boasted an in-house sausage kitchen for making Lauer's sausage.
Lauer bought two Kroger grocery outlets in 1971 — one in Beaver Dam and one on Forest Avenue in Fond du Lac. The second Fond du Lac location lasted about two years, until the building lease was lost in 1973, but by then, Lauer had plans for another store on Fond du Lac Avenue.
More 'Remember when ...': Remember when Fred Rueping Leather Co. was one of Fond du Lac's most celebrated businesses? It lasted 131 years.
Lauer's expanded to eastern Fond du Lac in 1975
Lauer's Food Mart on Fond du Lac Avenue opened in December 1975 to thousands of customers its first day, many of whom were from out of town, according to archives.
The grocery section of this new location was about the same size as the store on Johnson Street, but the Fond du Lac Avenue location also had a restaurant, sausage kitchen, delicatessen, bakery and liquor mart, making the entire facility almost twice the size of the original store.
With the new store, Francis Lauer and his wife Ester also ushered in the third generation by passing the business to their sons, John, Bruce and Steve. John Lauer ran the Waupun location, Bruce Lauer took the Johnson Street store and Steve Lauer took the Fond du Lac Avenue store.
The stores continued to do well for several years, and eventually became known as Lauer's West for the Johnson Street store and Lauer's East for Fond du Lac Avenue.
As the family business started in meat, the meat department was particularly popular, but the Lauer's stores also had both name brand and private brand products, a coupon trading post for swapping out useful coupons and carryout service that lasted well into the 1990s.
When more grocery stores started opening in Fond du Lac by the late 1980s, some local store owners felt Fond du Lac was getting too saturated with grocery stores, but Bruce Lauer remodeled his store, expanding some of the departments and adding a brick "Market Street" to display produce.
"There can never be too many (stores) because then I could be too many," he told The Reporter in 1989.
By then, Fond du Lac's major grocery stores were the two Lauer's stores, two Sentry stores, two Pick 'n Saves, a Piggly Wiggly, a Super Valu, Kohl's Food Store and Red Owl Country Store.
More: Remember when you could get sundaes from a drugstore soda counter? Here's a small scoop of Fond du Lac ice cream history.
However, Lauer's East had an advantageous location with new housing in the area and fewer competing grocery stores, Steve Lauer said in 1993. The neighborhood grew around the store.
In 1995, Lauer's West closed, and while it may not have been the number of grocery stores that factored into the decision, Bruce Lauer said at the time the store wasn't large "as far as grocery stores go today." He moved on to his other business, Lauer's Performance Engine Supply, to work on Harley-Davidson engines — saying goodbye to working in air conditioning.
Lauer's East, then just Lauer's Food Mart as the only location in Fond du Lac, closed in 1999, as did the attached restaurant. Steve Lauer didn't have a specific reason for closing at the time, and sold the store's contents before selling the building.
More history: It happened this week
- Aug. 12, 1965:A 100-year-old landmark at the "Six Points," most recently the Harvey Zwicky Grocery store, was announced to be torn down as soon as the new Zwicky store was completed.
- Aug. 14, 1970:Demolition of the South Hickory Street bridge over the Fond du Lac River was announced ahead of the bridge's replacement.
- Aug. 12, 1985:An off-duty U.S. Army recruiter caught a peaco*ck watching TV with him through the window. The "gaudily-clad window peeker" also swiped his watch as the man captured the peaco*ck with netting from his strawberry patch.
- Aug. 15, 1990:For the 45th anniversary of the World War II victory in Japan, the first of seven ceremonies was held in Fond du Lac to dedicate Highway 41 to WWII veterans, honored with signs along the highway.
"Remember when ..." is a bi-weekly column from Streetwise Reporter Daphne Lemke that looks back at businesses of Fond du Lac's storied past. Tell her what you'd like to see next by emailingdlemke@gannett.com.
