WIMBLEDON, N.D. — Before the rooster crowed on Saturday, Nov. 15, the Wimbledon Community Grocery sold more than $200 in goods. Not a clerk was in sight. The doors were locked. None of the small town’s 127 residents bought anything online.

The Wimbledon Community Grocery’s secret to surviving in a food desert, when 47 other grocery stores across the state have closed since 2014, was learned through trial and error.

Today, there are about 90 rural grocery stores left across the state, and the Wimbledon Community Grocery is one with a history stretching back a century.

Their story is best told over a plate of warm apple rhubarb pie and vanilla ice cream while seated in the backroom cafe. As Linda Grotberg, secretary-treasurer for the board, and Mike Clemens, chairman of the board, too

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