Without a big surge in sales or some other infusion of cash, the store will close in late summer or early fall, leaders of the store reported Wednesday evening during a public meeting.

“If things went on status quo as they are now we don’t have that many months left,” Mark Egli, the chairman of the board that oversees the store, said following the meeting.

“It’s not real optimistic, as far as I’m concerned, with the store’s future,” he added.

The store at 1105 Main St. opened in November 2020, about a year after Heartland Market, the Calhoun County city’s previous grocery store, closed.

The store posted losses in 2020 and 2021 as startup costs had to be paid. But for awhile, things looked promising.

In 2022, the store recorded $1.5 million in sales, according figures presented Wednesday.

But the following year, sales started dropping.

Manson Mayor Dave Anderson, a member of the board, said it appears that people went back to their old habits of buying groceries in Fort Dodge.

Then the openings of a new Dollar General in Pomeroy and a Fareway in Rockwell City siphoned off customers who once came to Manson to buy groceries.

Sales dropped to about $1 million last year.

Meanwhile, big repair expenses for compressors on the coolers are looming. The cash registers need to be replaced.

The board had been using COVID relief money to help pay the store’s small staff. That money is now gone.

“We can’t go on forever like this,” board member Justin Widlund told the roughly 30 people gathered at the VFW building for Wednesday’s meeting.

The meeting provided an opportunity for the board to sound the alarm about the store’s shaky financial status. It also offered an opportunity to members of the public to offer ideas for keeping it going.

Some ideas, such as recruiting youths to volunteer to work in the store, were discussed. No final decisions were made.

Anderson said the board members are tired.

“All these people have put a lot of effort into this,” he said. “It’s been a long haul. It’s hard to invest that much time into a business that you don’t have any return on.”

“I don’t want to do it anymore,” he added.