From basement to storefront: Asian grocery store coming to downtown Burlington

Even the meatloaf was different.

It was November 2019, and Leonilyn Richardson and her two children had just moved to rural Burlington to live with her new husband when food-related culture shock took hold.

"When she came over here, I said, 'I'm going to cook up a meatloaf.' I do pretty good on meatloafs," Ron Richardson recalled. "And when I put it on the table, she looked at it like, 'that's not meatloaf'."

A native to the Philippines and five-year resident of Taiwan, Leonilyn had never seen anything quite like American meatloaf. The meatloaf she was accustomed to came out of a can.

"It's more like a Spam," Leonilyn explained Tuesday from the desk of her office on the ground floor of the recently renovated Blaul Lofts building at the corner of Valley and Fifth streets.

It is there in that 3,400-square-foot store front that Leonilyn plans to open Lynne's Food Cravings Filipino-Asian Store.

"I named this business Lynne's Food Cravings because I really crave everything from my country, and also from Asia," Leonilyn said.

The physical storefront is built on an online business of the same name that Leonilyn launched in August and operated out of her home, the basement of which until recently had been brimming with inventory as Leonilyn's only Asian grocery store gradually took over her husband's man cave.

"(Customers) keep going to our house in the basement," Leonilyn told The Hawk Eye Tuesday in her office within the recently renovated space at the corner of Valley and Fifth streets. "Even the mail lady, she's buying stuff from me."

"I'll come home off the road and I'll be sitting there watching TV in my pajamas and here comes a bunch of people down in the basement, like, 'hi'," Ron, who works as a truck driver, added with a laugh.

It was while taking orders to the Burlington Post Office for delivery that Ron ran into a friend who works maintenance at Blaul Lofts. The 106-year-old building first used as a coffee roaster was remodeled in 2020 to house 39 apartment units and 15,000 square feet of commercial space.

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"He asked me how I was doing, and I said, well, we're kind of looking for a place in town. It's getting too big for the basement now," Ron said. "So we came over here and looked at this and here we are."

The Richardsons leased out the space in February and submitted permit paperwork on Friday. Leonilyn will continue to operate the online store and hopes to open the Lynne's Food Cravings storefront location sometime this month.

Leonilyn also plans to carry frozen food items and other staples, such as milk and soda, to meet the needs of those living in the apartments above her store as well as those who will live in the nearby Churchill and Ebert buildings, which are being remodeled to house 50 market-rate units.

From beauty to foodie

Leonilyn's move to the U.S. came just months before COVID-19 shut down the world, making trips she and Ron had planned to return to the Philippines to visit family impossible.

Tastes of home helped during that time, she said, explaining how glad she was the first time Ron took her to Sa3m Sao Market in Mount Pleasant, the nearest Asian grocery store.

She and her children, John, now 6, and Shaine, now 12, relied on Facebook to stay connected with family back home, but the social media site also introduced Leonilyn to the business of coffee and beauty.

Last March, she began selling Vibrant Coffee and an array of beauty products online via Facebook before designing her own website, LynnesBeautyCloset.com, combining what she learned while studying computer science at the National College of Science and Technology while in the Philippines and tips and tricks she found on YouTube to build the site to her liking.

She quickly proved to be a natural businesswoman.

"I just researched all the information about the beauty products and people started getting interested in the items and then it worked for them and they keep getting more stuff and referred my website to their friends, so I got more customers," she said. "I also put a referral program on my website where they can refer people and get discounts."

With the success of her beauty product sales, she was able to quit her job at Walmart and focus her efforts on her business. Feeling she had enough experience under her belt and still craving food from home, she scouted out an Asian food wholesaler, Wood Dale, Illinois-based Philippine Food Corporation and designed another website, LynnesFoodCravings.com.

The beauty products filling the Richardsons' basement soon were joined by dried seafood, banana-based ketchups in an array of flavors, soup mixes, seasoning packets, mung beans, Pik-Nik fries, Goldilocks cookies, piyaya and everything else she would need to make her favorite meals.

Word spread quickly, and the Richardsons quickly found themselves shipping out an average of between 20 and 30 orders a day. Between her two businesses, Leonilyn was able to bring in enough money to lease the space for a physical storefront.

"That's the good thing about her business here, too," Ron said. "If something like (COVID) happens again, she's got her online thing that can pay the bills."

What started with a hobby paved the way for a marriage

Much like Leonilyn's businesses began online, so too did her relationship with her husband.

The two met on a dating website. Ron started an account at the recommendation of a co-worker while employed at the Iowa Army Ammunition Plant, and Leonilyn had joined out of curiosity.

She was working in Taiwan at the time as an LCD inspector, a job she took on a three-year contract to send money home to support her children and family.

"During my break time, I look on the website and kind of just looking," she recalled. "I wasn't really serious looking. It was like a hobby."

One day, she came across Ron's profile, with whom she had been matched based on interests, values and personality.

Each intrigued by the other's appearance and hard-working nature, they began to exchange messages.

"He looks hard-working. I have two kids, so I thought he was going to be a good husband and father to my kids," Leonilyn said. "I like a simple guy. I don't like guys wearing a lot of stuff, so that's it."

"They can't really make much money in the Philippines," Ron said. "So she was in Taiwan and she was supporting her whole family while she was working over there and I thought, well, she's not afraid to work. ... She's somebody who wants to work to make their life better just like I do."

The two were smitten, and two months after they began talking, Ron found himself boarding a plane for the first time in his life and traveling halfway around the world to meet Leonilyn in person in Taiwan.

"I'd never been on a plane before," Ron said. "I'd never even been in an airport."

By the end of Ron's visit, they decided to get married and plunged themselves into government paperwork that would make it possible for Leonilyn and her children to move to the U.S.

With the proper paperwork filed, they met again, this time in the Philippines for an interview at the U.S. Embassy and to meet Leonilyn's family, including her children who had been living with Leonilyn's parents while she worked in Taiwan. She'd been having daily video calls with her daughter, but her son was too young to understand.

"My baby, he didn't know me when I came home, so that was kind of hard for me," she said.

Three weeks later, Leonilyn was issued a green card and she and her children flew to the U.S.

Leonilyn and Ron married soon after in their living room.

The couple enrolled their children in the Danville School District, although Iowa schools would shut down a few months later.

Ron taught Leonilyn to drive, and Leonilyn impressed Ron with her computer savvy.

"She was going to have somebody build her websites for her and then she got to tinkering around and was like, 'I think I can do this.' I can't even turn one on," Ron said with a laugh.

With the opening of the physical storefront, the couple doubts they will be able to make it back to the Philippines anytime soon, but they hope to help other Philippine natives living in the Burlington area connected to their home country, both through taste and mail. Leonilyn said she plans to set up a box in the store that will serve as a drop-off location for area residents wanting to send things to their loved ones in the Philippines.

Ron looks forward to being able to reclaim his man cave between long trips spent on the road. Leonilyn is considering expanding her business to include Philippine clothing.

Michaele Niehaus covers business, development, environment and agriculture for The Hawk Eye. She can be reached at mniehaus@thehawkeye.com.

This article originally appeared on The Hawk Eye: Asian grocery store Lynne's Food Cravings opening soon in Burlington