Ribbon Cut on Allen's Country Market, Village Post Office
Posted
Jordan Fouts-
MENTONE – When Allen’s Country Market opened Tuesday it also cut the ribbon on the second Village Post Office in Kosciusko County and the 26th in Indiana. Customers of the new store will be able to find stamps and envelopes for sale along with groceries, deli items, hot food and fresh meat. The convenience store is owned by Barbara and Patrick Allen, who said they decided to do something different after Patrick worked for a factory for several years. Allen’s was considered for a Village Post Office after Mentone residents learned in October that the postal service was considering cutting the town’s post office hours. Window hours for the Mentone post office are now Monday to Friday from 9 a.m. to 3 p.m. and Saturday from 8:30 to 10:30 a.m. Allen’s VPO, which is staffed by store employees, has the same hours as the market: Monday to Saturday from 8 a.m. to 8 p.m., and Sunday from 10 a.m. to 6 p.m. Silver Lake opened the first VPO in the county in its town hall Jan. 11. Alice Moore, acting post office review coordinator in Indianapolis, said convenience stores are often the best fit for VPOs because of their long hours. She said the Allens expressed an interest in hosting a VPO after speaking with a store owner in Delong who has one. Moore recalled visiting the market along with the other candidate in Mentone, the town library. “The chicken caught my attention,” she said with a laugh, referring to the man-sized sculpture outside the door of the market. She also noted that the greater Indiana district leads the nation in VPOs, something the state office is proud of. The service has awarded 30 contracts for VPOs in the state, while the 100th VPO in the nation was celebrated in Linden Dec. 19.
