KE Black Mercantile's storefront and outdoor seating area pictured on May 9. The Main Street Dysart gourmet kitchen store and coffee shop owned by Kathy Bonewitz and her mother Mary Huffman recently marked its 10th anniversary. PHOTO BY RUBY F. MCALLISTER

DYSART – It’s been 10 years since Katherine ‘Kathy’ Bonewitz and her mother Mary Huffman opened KE Black Mercantile in downtown Dysart and while many small shops/eateries have come and gone during that time, their gourmet kitchen store and coffee shop is as popular as ever – continuing to evolve with the times as a Main Street anchor.

The shop officially celebrated its 10th anniversary on April 1. During a recent sit down after hours with the newspaper, Bonewitz and Rene Ternus – the shop’s lone full-time employee – marked the milestone by rewinding through the past 10 years.

“I lived in Iowa until I was 12 or 13,” Bonewitz, who after leaving Iowa spent her adolescence in Colorado, recalled when asked how she ended up in Dysart at the age of 43. “I went to Ackley-Geneva [now AGWSR]. We moved away in 1986. … When I was 18, I wanted to be an open heart surgeon.”

Eventually, Bonewitz did end up in a surgery bay by becoming a traveling surgical technician – a career she ended when her mother talked her into opening a business in the picturesque town of Dysart.

“I didn’t know this town existed,” Bonewitz admitted. “Back in the ’90s, I wanted to open a coffee kiosk. I’d visit my mom in Iowa and ask, ‘Where are the coffee kiosks?'”

KE Black Mercantile co-owner and head chef/baker Kathy Bonewitz, right, gets a hug from her one and only full-time employee Rene Ternus while standing behind her shop’s coffee bar in late April. The duo along with Amanda Schneider and Bonewitz’s mother, co-owner Mary Huffman make up the business’s small but mighty staff. PHOTO BY RUBY F. MCALLISTER

Little did Bonewitz realize that such an offhand comment would one day come to define much of her working hours.

After first falling in love with the town of Dysart as a Main Street patron, Huffman decided in late 2012 to retire there from Cedar Rapids. It was while visiting her mother in August of 2013 that Bonewitz purchased the future shop’s building at 307 Main Street.

Less than a year later, KE Black Mercantile – an amalgam formed from Bonewitz’s first and middle (Elizabeth) initials along with her maternal grandmother’s maiden name, Black – opened its doors in the former Community Service Insurance Building.

While the shop initially only sold kitchen goods along with wine and gourmet foods, roughly a year after the grand opening Bonewitz and Huffman added coffee, the shop’s ever-popular smoothies, and baked treats to the offerings.

But soon customers were, literally, hungry for more.

One of KE Black Mercantile’s most popular lunch specials, Rene’s New Favorite Wrap, pictured recently along with a side of pasta salad and an iced latte. The delectable dish — which always sells out — is made with shredded chicken, Mexican street corn, lettuce, avocado, tomato, red onion, crispy jalapenos, and chipotle mayo all wrapped up in a flour tortilla. PHOTO BY RUBY F. MCALLISTER

“People would ask, ‘Is there any way we can get an egg with this?'” Bonewitz said with a laugh.

In late 2015, breakfast and the requisite tables were added to KE Black’s repertoire with lunch soon to follow.

Today, KE Black no longer serves breakfast – a change ushered in mostly due to the pandemic, Bonewitz said, but also the bottom line.

“There’s not a lot of money to be made with breakfast.”

But they do serve some of the best lunches around, drawing hungry patrons from across Iowa, while also stocking a full line of wines, spirits, and beers including many local, niche brands.

PHOTO BY RUBY F. MCALLISTER

The ladies behind the menu

Visitors to downtown Dysart truly couldn’t encounter shopkeepers more lovely, welcoming, and vivacious than Bonewitz and her right-hand gal Rene Ternus.

Stop by KE Black during the lunch rush on any given Tuesday through Saturday and there’s often not an empty table available plus a line at the coffee shop’s back bar. According to Ternus, much of that popularity has to do with not only the crazy good sandwiches, salads, wraps, pastas, and soups Bonewitz creates from scratch – many of which are named for local Dysart residents – but also because of her boss’s heart.

As the two colleagues (and now best friends) reminisced after hours back in April, Ternus warned Bonewitz she was going to be frank.

“I’m going to say this because she won’t,” Ternus said, leading to her boss’s abrupt departure from the table and a hasty retreat to the kitchen prep area. “[Kathy] is very generous but she’ll never talk about it. She sees a need with people – but she’ll never talk about it.”

KE Black Mercantile co-owner and head chef/baker Kathy Bonewtiz, left, and Rene Ternus pictured in the shop recently. While Ternus has been with KE Black for the last six years, the kitchen store/coffee shop recently celebrated its 10th anniversary. PHOTO BY RUBY F. MCALLISTER

Ternus went on to explain that during the pandemic when in-house breakfast was shut down, Bonewitz fretted like a mother hen about several of her older male customers.

“She shed tears over the older guys, [asking], ‘Where are they going to go?'”

Before COVID-19 took over the world, several distinguished Dysart residents would stop by KE Black daily for both a cup of joe and a pancake. Ternus said the men’s daily breakfast sojourns were the highlight of Bonewitz’s day.

“They’d order pancakes, a lot of them, and ask, ‘Whose is bigger?’ They would compete over the size.”

Ternus said many of those individuals have since passed away including Raymond ‘Dean’ Young who owned and operated Young’s Golf Cart on the south side of town.

PHOTO BY RUBY F. MCALLISTER

“She will never ever brag about herself,” Ternus continued, “She’s a freaking workhorse. She works so hard. She will never ever serve something that she’s not fully on board (with). She puts her heart and soul into everything.”

Everything on the KE Black Mercantile menu is fresh and never frozen, Bonewitz said later in the interview.

On April 18, the day the newspaper visited, the lunch special was ‘Rene’s New Favorite Wrap’ – named for Ternus – and it was quite possibly, without exaggeration, the most delicious wrap this newspaper reporter has ever eaten in all her 42 years. The wrap consists of shredded chicken, Mexican street corn, lettuce, avocado, tomato, red onion, crispy jalapenos, and chipotle mayo all wrapped up in a flour tortilla.

Between the crunch of the crispy jalapenos and the to-die-for street corn, it was beyond a doubt a new favorite in this reporter’s notebook.

Naming menu items after local residents has become a fun, regional quirk unique to the KE Black menu. In addition to Ternus’s wrap, there’s also the ‘Bri Panini’ – a turkey, tomato, spinach, fresh mozzarella, provolone, and basil pesto wrap on sourdough – named for local Bri Lorenzen who once worked across the street at Eikamp Insurance; the ‘Aly G Wrap’ – a turkey, bacon, tomato, red onion, lettuce, ranch, and shredded cheese wrap on a tortilla – named for local Aly Goken; and many more.

Loving her customers enough to create menu items in their honor is a key component to KE Black’s longevity, Ternus said.

Later in the interview after Bonewitz returned to the table, both women began to choke up.

“She seriously is my best friend,” Ternus said while smiling at Bonewitz who was seated across a cafe table from her. “She is such a great employer. She always tells me, ‘I appreciate you.’ She’s generous to my kids. All through the time I’ve worked (here), she (has been) so understanding.”

When asked to summarize, in a nutshell, the secret to KE Black Mercantile’s success the last 10 years, Ternus didn’t hesitate to answer.

“It’s because of the way [Kathy] is – she’s just so giving.”

Add to that a delectable, inventive lunch menu plus a shop full of beautiful yet practical kitchen goods and gadgets and you’ve got the recipe for a flourishing business.

To all the ladies behind KE Black Mercantile’s continued Main Street success including Bonewitz, Huffman, Ternus, and (part-time employee) Amanda Schneider, here’s to another 10 years! Cheers!

KE Black Mercantile located in downtown Dysart at 307 Main Street is open five days a week: Tuesday through Friday from 10 a.m. to 4 p.m., and Saturdays from 8 a.m. to 2 p.m. For more information including daily specials, refer to the business’s Facebook page, KE Black Mercantile found at https://www.facebook.com/keblackmercantileDysart. For take-out orders or catering inquiries, call 319-476-COOK (2665).

Telegraph note: This story will publish in the May 17, 2024, print edition of the newspaper.