John’s Grocery, located at 401 E Market St, is one of the oldest buildings in Iowa City and we are lucky to have it in our Northside Neighborhood. The building that is now John’s Grocery was built in 1848, only two years after Iowa became a state. Before it became John's, it was a grocery store, an apartment building, a saloon, a barbershop, a fire station, office space, and even a factory for the Ernste Manufacturing Company, according to John’s Grocery's website.

An interesting fact about John’s Grocery is that in 2006 when a tornado came through town, some of our neighbors gathered in an underground fridge, called the cave, to seek shelter. Doug Alberhasky, owner of John’s explained in the history of John's Grocery, “If there’s one place you’d want to be in a tornado, as long as the floor drains were working, it would be here, in the cave.”

To learn more about this Northside landmark go to https://www.johnsgrocery.com/about/