Pike Office Supply moved into what many Owenites remember as the old Time Federal Savings building and after that bank moved out - Town and Country Finance, LLC. The building located at 249 W 3rd St., Owen, was purchased by Earl Martin a.k.a. Grandpa Earl or Grandpa Earl’s Foods, LLC., stripped of all things banking and refurbished into an office supply

store. On May 1, 2023, Martin purchased the old Pike building and business from TuMarx, Inc., owners Mark Gorke and Mark Renderman. His intent was to use the larger building with warehouse to make his pretzels and eventually Yellowstone breaded cheese curds.

“Basically, I bought it for the space, as you are well aware,” said Martin of the previous Pike Office location, “I own Martin’s Fresh Market, which I originally bought for the kitchen, but now the kitchen is too small for what we want to do. And the store is doing way too well to take space away from it. And to build on… it’s prohibitive in cost. Then I found out this was for sale, so here I am.”

Almost a year later, Martin moved Pike Office Supply out of the building to make room to, one day soon, process breaded cheese curds.  The kitchen built to make Grandpa Earl’s Pretzels is nearly ready to begin pumping out hard pretzels and is located behind the showroom where Pike was located. 

“By the end of the summer… I'm hoping by fall, I want to make battered cheese curds, and everybody knows that's why I started with this whole deal,” Martin explained. “And that's why Pike moved here because I need the space. We're going to make that space into a processing room where we would bring cheese curds in, batter, freeze and package them.”

Ashley Kroeplin continues to manage the office supply store and Martin gives her all the credit for the design, organization of the products at the new location, getting rid of the old worn-out carpet and replacing it with new vinyl. The long counter which once divided the space and served decades of bank visitors has been revamped into a smaller service counter.

Ashley said that everything is on the shelves now, like the previous building, except they no longer have back storage. Martin said he will be having his marketing guru, who built the Grandpa Earl’s Pretzel website, create the Pike Office Supply website so all the supplies can be purchased online.

Carole Buss continues to deliver Pike Office supplies to surrounding towns. “We've been expanding a little bit,” Kroeplin said regarding their delivery area. “We've gone to Athens, Ogema, Stanley, Boyd, I think Stratford.”

When asked what customers most often purchase, Kroeplin replied, “A lot of ink cartridges and paper also because we offer so many different kinds. I like to tell people; we can sell everything from cleaning supplies to office furniture, pretty much anything that you need in an office.”

Even though Pike currently does not have its own website, they can order things online for their customers through another company. “There is another website that goes through our supplier called Big Book.Com and that's where they can find things,” Kroeplin said. “But a lot of the prices are not going to be accurate. They're going to be a lot more than what we would sell things for.”

Martin said that hopefully soon customers will be able buy products online with the correct Pike pricing, pay for it and then Pike will have it delivered.

In the process of moving and tearing things up, Martin said they found an old Hanson Office Supply paper weight he thinks is over 100 years old. Kroeplin said she has been doing some research on the history of Pike Office Supply and would appreciate it if anyone has information on the history of this business to stop in or call.

Pike Office is open Monday through Thursday from 8 a.m. to 5 p.m. and Friday from 8 a.m. to 12 noon. For more information call 715-229-2551.