Neighborhood meat business to close to make way for parking

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By Tory Brecht | Friday, August 8, 2008 1:30 AM CDT | () comments

The Olde Smokehouse on the 1300 block of West Locust Street, Davenport, will soon close to make way for more parking for St. Ambrose University. (Larry Fisher/QUAD-CITY TIMES) Buy this Photo

A quarter-century into his tenure as a neighborhood butcher, Dave Hayner, the proprietor of the Olde Smokehouse, was experiencing a modest uptick in business when he got some bad news from his landlord.

Hayner’s specialty meat shop, housed in one of the oldest commercial buildings along Locust Street in Davenport, is among a shrinking number of mom-and-pop stores in the central city. About 15 years ago, the dentist who owned the building — and another building housing an office and a hair salon next door in the 1300 block of West Locust — donated the property to St. Ambrose University as a tax write-off.

Since 1993, Hayner and the owner of Betty’s Wig Boutique next door have leased the building that dates to 1919 from the college.

In July, school officials told them there would be no lease renewal. The buildings have to come down to provide parking for the college’s renovation of a vacant convent on nearby Pleasant Street that will house a new speech pathology program and other classes.

“It was a total shock,” Hayner said. “We specialize in sausages and make our own in our smokehouse. People are having a fit because they’re not going to find that anymore.”

Hayner also sells pork that is not “pumped full of hormones and other crap,” never-frozen fresh chickens, 45 kinds of Wisconsin cheeses and other hard-to-find-at-a-megastore items.

The recent focus on healthy eating, along with increased interest in locally grown food, had business looking up, he said.

“I’m very upset about it,” said customer Georgiann Higknight, who added that she ordered 20 pounds of chorizo after learning the store would be closing. “It’s going to change my whole cooking style. There are things you can get here you can’t get anywhere else.”

Mike Poster, St. Ambrose University’s vice president of finance, said the school knew there would be unhappy customers and business owners when the decision was made. But the school has already been heavily criticized for not providing enough parking in the neighborhood.

“We will be putting approximately 50 people in the building Monday through Saturday,” he said. “The zoning only has space for nine parking spots for the building. To be proactive, we had to have a parking solution.”

While Hayner says he will not look for a new location — “I’m going to be 60 next year and I’m not willing to go into debt to work for a few more years,” he said — the ladies at Betty’s Wig Boutique are looking for new digs.

Kate Goodworth, the daughter-in-law of store owner Betty Goodworth, who was injured in a serious auto accident last year, is saddened and nervous, but also hopeful that something good can come out of change.

“I like to see the growth at St. Ambrose because I think it helps our community,” she said. “But on the other end, it’s frustrating to uproot everything.”

The store with the bright pink carpeting and shelves full of mannequin heads sporting multiple hair fashions has been an anchor in the neighborhood for 20 years, she said.

They are looking at locations downtown and in the Village of East Davenport. But wherever they go will likely be more expensive, she added.

Hayner’s immediate focus will be on selling coolers, cutting machines and other detritus of the meat business.

When he and his partner moved into the building in 1985, they found an old cork-lined cooler and a huge smoker in the basement. The store had been a butcher shop in the 1920s. In the interim, it served as a restaurant, a popular drug store and an auto paint store.

Hayner said it is somewhat fitting that the building’s last use will be as a butcher shop.

“You just don’t get meat like that in the Hy-Vees and stores like that,” he said. “I guess I’ll have to go work for somebody else for a while.”

Tory Brecht can be contacted at (563) 383-2329 or tbrecht@qctimes.com. Comment on this story at qctimes.com.