By Jeff Kenney Citizen editor
Residents and visitors to the parking lot of Culver’s longtime — and today virtually only — grocery store may pull into the same property as before to do their shopping, but what they’ll find inside feels like a virtually new store.
Last week, most of the final touches were put into place at Culver’s Park N’ Shop supermarket on Lake Shore Drive, and customers have been wowed by the transformation.

Co-owner Bill Rhodes says the original motive for the changes was the indirect result of a slew of needed equipment replacements in the store, many of which hit at about the same time. He says all of the store’s equipment has been replaced over the past five years and Rhodes and his brother Dennis – who took the store over from their late father some years ago -- felt it was time for a new décor package.
A designer from Detroit was hired towards that end, and before long the project took on a remodeling component — and addition — to the store. “It’s kind of like when you buy a new couch and end up remodeling your kitchen,” chuckles Rhodes. “We fixed the floor and ceilings, and (the designer) had the wonderful ideas of changing the direction of the aisles and register.”
The Rhodes’ Culver connection goes back some time. Their father, Charles, first operated Park N’ Shop at 115 East Jefferson Street, the building which now houses Culver Cabana restaurant, starting in 1959. In May, 1963, having purchased and razed the M.R. Cline Builders store just east of the first Park N’ Shop (on the site of today’s Culver Cove), Rhodes opened the new, steel Park N’ Shop building he’d had constructed there. In April, 1981, Park N’ Shop opened its doors at its present location, having taken it over from the Alford’s IGA supermarket for which the building was originally built in 1976 (thus ending a brief price war between the two stores and capping off bygone eras of multiple, smaller groceries operating in Culver simultaneously).
Those who haven’t visited the store in weeks or months will immediately be surprised by the elaborate, 10 by 18 foot mural painted on the building’s exterior by local artist (and Culver Cabana co-owner) Jon Bickel, who also fabricated almost all of the interior signs and décor — as well as exterior lettering — according to the designer’s specifications The result is an especially local feel to Park N’ Shop.
Shoppers enter through a completely transformed and up to date produce section. The aforementioned change in aisle direction and lighting, floor and ceiling, as well as available goods, also provide an immediate and startling new, more modern look to the entire store.
“We’ve doubled our specials every week (due to the expansion),” notes Rhodes. “We’ve got room to display things properly, and we’ve probably picked up a thousand-plus new items. We’ve got more specialty foods, organic items, more in the deli and produce areas – a lot of things we didn’t have room for before.”
What for a time was a drive-through Taco Bell area has been renovated to house the new store office, with the former office space giving more space for sales. A new cooler has been installed behind the store, says Rhodes, and the direction of the parking lot will be altered soon after the fourth of July holiday for more efficiency and better flow of traffic.
Though Bill and Dennis also continue to operate five Sav-A-Lot and other grocery and convenience stores in Knox, Rochester, South Bend, and LaPorte, no doubt some of the attention to Culver’s Park N’ Shop is aided by the fact that the Rhodes family now lives in Culver full-time. Either way, the changes have met with widespread local enthusiasm.
“It was a good package,” says Rhodes. “It came out nicer than we expected. We’re getting rave reviews from the town people.”