Workers were busy installing equipment and getting the new Kwik Trip store in New Ulm ready for its scheduled opening on Sept. 10.

NEW ULM — Work on the North Broadway Kwik Trip is rolling ahead, and the new store should be ready for its soft opening at 5 a.m. on Friday, Sept. 10.

Steve Wrobel, public relations representative for Kwik Trip, said work crews are installing fixtures, dispensers and other equipment in the new store that is being built on the front of the former Running’s parking lot on Broadway between 16th North and 17th North Streets.

Plans are to open on Sept. 10, then hold a grand opening on Sept. 28, with a ribbon cutting at 11 a.m. that day.

A crew of 40 co-workers is being hired, and will be directed by building manager Carrita Anderson.

The new Kwik Trip and the existing one will be separate operations, with their own management, though there is a possibility for sharing some operations and staff.

Wrobel said Kwik Trip is excited about adding a new store in New Ulm.

“We feel New Ulm is a town that can support two stores, and we are happy to be opening this one,” he said.

The new store will be larger in square footage than the store on South Broadway, and it will feature a side diesel canopy that will cater to semi tractor-trailers, something the South Broadway location lacks.

The new store will have a larger kitchen than the South Broadway store.

Food is an important part of the Kwik Trip business plan, said Wrobel. Its stores operate as corner groceries where people can pick up bread, eggs, milk and other items. They also feature ready-to-eat items, many of them prepared on site.

Wrobel said Kwik Trip produces about 80 percent of the food products it sells, in processing centers in LaCrosse, Wis., where the company is headquartered. It has its own dairy, kitchen and bakery, where it prepares sandwiches, pizzas and other entrees. These are shipped each day to the stores.

This has limited the Kwik Trip business area to Wisconsin, Minnesota, Iowa and now Illinois. Kwik Trip stores are also known as Kwik Star in Iowa. In recent years it aquired the Stop n Go stores in Wisconsin and Illinois.

Kwik Trip is a private, family-owned business, owned by four generations of the Don and LaVonne Zietlow family.