Kieslich’s Market Content Block 2.b

The market offered an extensive free delivery service for customers. Prior to telephones, the delivery person—usually a Kieslich—would stop at customers’ homes to pick up a list, returning that evening or the next day with the goods. No family member was exempt from doing deliveries; Albert and his brothers did local deliveries on foot in the neighborhood, often anticipating what regular customers needed. For deliveries farther afield, JV hired drivers to deliver by horse-drawn wagon. In the early years, clerks packed the groceries in collapsible wood boxes with the Kieslich Market name stamped on the side. Customers expected the deliveryman to put the groceries in their iceboxes and on their pantry shelves. Phone orders and a truck streamlined service in the 1920s. 

When Vermont’s Tenth Cavalry returned from pursuing revolutionary general Pancho Villa in Mexico, they brought with them a burro as mascot. John Kieslich won the burro in a raffle at the German Club. “Burro” sometimes made deliveries, when he felt like it.

Burlington Daily News, May 11, 1917

Albert Kieslich gave free expression to his creativity when designing weekly fliers. Printed on colored paper, they featured one of the market’s mottos at the top and whimsical drawings interspersed with weekly specials.  Meat specials occupied close to half of each flier, with local products and national brands the rest.