ST. CHARLES TOWNSHIP – A seed and feed store will again occupy the barn on Kirk Road that had housed the popular Regole's Harvest Shoppe for more than four decades.
Next month, Tom and Shirley Stopka and their sons, Jim and Tom Stopka, plan to open Trellis Farm & Garden at 2N492 Kirk Road in St. Charles.
The family is currently refurbishing the property in advance of a planned September opening.
"This is just a wonderful property," said Shirley Stopka. "And we want to get this open as fast as possible to make sure we keep these customers happy – people who had been buying there for years."
Stopka said her family understands they are attempting to replace a local legend.
For 46 years, the Regole family and their relatives had operated a seed and feed store out of that location, building up a loyal following of customers through the years, some of whom would drive long distances to purchase the varieties of pet food, grass seed, bird seed and other supplies offered at Regole's Harvest Shoppe.
"It's always amazing to hear customers tell us that they would drive out here from Chicago to get their pet needs," Stopka said. "But people would do that."
Regole's closed in December 2009, however, at the decision of Mary and Jesse Miller of Warrenville, relatives of landowners Edward and Vivienne Regole, who now reside in Arizona.
The Stopkas are leasing the property from the Regoles.
Shirley Stopka said the Trellis store will be "the same, but yet a little different" from the Regole's shop.
"That's how we want it to be," Stopka said. "When you have something there for that many years, and people really like it, you want to be a part of it."
Trellis has obtained certification as a Purina authorized dealer, allowing the store to boast the trademark checkerboard logo and to sell Purina's brand of horse feed and backyard animal feeds.
The store will also offer shavings, hay and straw, grass seed, wild bird food and feeders, specialty animal feed mixes, vegetables and flowering plants, mulches and soils, salt delivery and propane refills, among other products.
Day-to-day operations at the store will be run by the Stopka's sons, Jim and Tom.
