Maynard’s grocery store has purchased the off-sale liquor license from Bean and Vine, which is closing this month.

In a separate agreement, the coffee shop’s owner Stacie Suedkamp will move her custom specialty cookie business, Fig Tales, to an area inside of the grocery store.

Bean and Vine’s last day at the West End Plaza is May 18, Suedkamp said. An auction of restaurant supplies will be May 23 at the business.

In addition, First Savings Bank will move from its Wind Street location downtown to the Bean and Vine’s space, once it is remodeled. With Michael Foods in the former Studio 52 spot, the West End Plaza storefronts will remain full.

For Suedkamp, the cookie shop inside of the grocery store allows her to keep her business in Flandreau. “It’s super exciting,” she said.

The area that had been the grocery store deli and most recently an employee break room has the three-compartment sink and a hand-washing sink that she needed for her primarily mail-order cookie business. She will move her commercial oven into the space, along with other baking equipment.

Maynard’s manager Mike Witte reached out to Suedkamp within the last month after finding out she might have to move her business out of Flandreau to find commercial space to bake. “I don’t really like to see a business leave us,” he said.

The two, along with the president of Maynard’s, worked out an agreement that included gutting and remodeling the new space she will use.

The solution came just in time, Suedkamp said. She was ready to sign an agreement for space in Dell Rapids when Witte heard she needed a spot.

“This kind of stuff only happens in a small town,” she said. “Mike joined the FDC (Flandreau Development Corporation), went to one meeting and said, ‘I have a solution to this.’”

Maynard’s also was interested in buying Suedkamp’s liquor license because the store had been wanting one for a couple of years, Witte said. He is remodeling space at the south end of the grocery store for the liquor area.

Suedkamp, who fills local orders for personalized cookies and also ships them to customers anywhere in the world, said she is not able to keep up with all of her businesses without being able to find enough employees for the coffee shop. She has chosen to focus on Fig Tales.

“Bean and Vine does great business. I simply don’t have enough help,” she said. In addition to coffee drinks, she also has sold food and operates a liquor store in the back of the shop, where she also decorates cookies. “It has been so stressful trying to run a coffee shop, café, liquor store and cookies.”

She had to bake and decorate cookies after her retail shop closed, often late into the night before getting back to the shop for coffee customers the next morning. She’s only been able to offer her own cookies in her retail shop once because she doesn’t have time to bake extras, she said.

She’s happy to stay in Flandreau after moving here three years ago to buy the Bean and Vine. “This is a great community. I have had tremendous support for the cookie business from the community. That’s what makes it easy to stay.”

Her new space at Maynard’s should be ready for her to use as soon as she closes her other business. That will help her complete the orders she already has scheduled into June, she said.

While most of Suedkamp’s business is mail order, she and Witte, along with Maynard’s president, Gary Carlson, have talked about a non-competing cookie package that she may bake for the store, if she has time. Maynard’s doesn’t have an in-house bakery, and the product could include a less customized seasonal decorated cookie, for example.

“The main first goal is just to keep her in town,” Witte said. “It’ll kind of be up to Stacie on how much times she’s going to have.”

Witte said the addition of off-sale liquor is something the grocery store started pursuing two years ago when two of the three licenses were tied up with businesses that were closed. That left Bean and Vine with the only active retail liquor license. Since that time, a new Mexican restaurant, Fajita’s Bar & Grill, has opened and sells off-sale liquor, and the former Wind Street Station has been purchased by new owners who plan to open the liquor store again.

“That was a no brainer to us. We wanted that license,” Witte said of the Bean and Vine’s license. The transfer of the license is planned for approval at the May 21 city council meeting, and the space should be ready for customers by June, he said.

Chris Wagner, branch president for First Savings Bank in Sioux Falls and Flandreau, said when the Bean and Vine space became available, the bank was interested because it could add a drive-up window and an ATM, something it doesn’t have at its historic building downtown. In addition, customers won’t have to navigate steps into the bank.

Wagner said the plan is to be open in the new location in August.

“We’ll continue to provide a good service to the folks in Flandreau,” he said. “I think this will help grow the bank and relationship there in Flandreau.”