Sept. 4, 2020

One Sioux Falls business has moved to a smaller community to be closer to home.

Dakota Stained Glass, now owned by Nico and Matt Rogers, relocated from Westport Avenue to the town of Garretson but is settling in well, the couple said.

“We mainly moved here because we have the four kids in school,” Nico Rogers said. “We just really wanted to be able to bring it to our community because we’ve done projects for the day care here and I’d like to get into the high school art program as well.”

Even though Dakota Stained Glass is almost 30 minutes away from its former location, Rogers said it still experiences lots of business from Sioux Falls and the surrounding area.

“We still have lots of people come from even Sioux City. Sioux Falls people still come here,” Rogers said. “There isn’t really anything else for glass sales and retail that we have around. We’ve gotten lots of repairs from just being the only glass sales in the region.”

Because of the timing of their move in March, the couple didn’t experience much loss in sales because of COVID-19 like some other local businesses have, Rogers said.

“We just closed down when COVID started to really hit just so we could move. That took weeks in itself, and there was no way we could stay open,” Rogers said. “In that sense, COVID kind of worked in our favor so that we could do that.”

Since reopening, Dakota Stained Glass also has been able to use the new location on Main Street across from the high school to ensure a safe experience for its customers, something that Rogers said has been valuable for business.

“It has been pretty consistent. We opened up in May, and the first couple weeks were slow, but in the past couple weeks, classes have started,” Rogers said. “We have enough space that we can do distanced classes. We can keep people pretty distant.”

Overall, Rogers continued, the move has been a turning point for Dakota Stained Glass and has helped the couple expand their horizons both in terms of the communities they have reached and the classes and products they offer.

She said Garretson has been a perfect fit for them so far, and they don’t plan on moving again anytime soon.

“We would definitely like to be able to grow some and have more class options. We’d like to add bead-making later on,” Rogers said. “We’ll probably stay here forever; after moving all that glass, we have no desire to move anymore. We’ve gotten to know our community so well through this, and I don’t think we’re going anywhere anytime soon.”