Chadron entrepreneur grows her business inside Chadron Open Art gallery

CHADRON, Neb. (KOLN) - Rylee Greiman, owner of The Wandering Lilac, started her business in 2023 to fill a gap in Chadron’s local food scene.

Greiman said she played college volleyball at Chadron State and was near the end of her degree when she began.

“I knew I was coming to the end of my college career, and I had always wanted to be my own boss,” Greiman said.

Instead of a traditional food business, Greiman chose a healthier, fresh option. “What I first started with were acai bowls and smoothies,” Greiman said.

Greiman described how the bowls are made. “They are a bowl. In the bottom, it’s going to be acai. And acai is a Brazilian berry. And then you top it with granola and fruits,” Greiman said. She said many people add peanut butter, honey, Nutella or chia seeds.

“You can really top it with whatever you feel like,” Greiman said.

The business began as a one-woman operation inside a small trailer Greiman found online.

“Literally, I saw one of my family friends selling a black two-horse trailer on Facebook Marketplace,” Greiman said.

She took the trailer to local events until she was ready for a permanent location. That led her to a storefront shared with the Chadron Open Art gallery.

“We’ve had lots of new customers come in just because they came here to look at the art and then they saw that we were in here,” Greiman said.

Greiman said she grew up in a single-parent household and that her grandmothers were prominent in raising her. She said she lived with her grandmother, Margo, for a period of time. Greiman’s grandfather died before she was born, and his favorite flower was lilacs.

“My grandma Margo would take me and my cousins and we would pick lilacs and bring them to my grandpa’s grave. And we would just sit there and kind of just take in life. So, the actual lilac part comes from that,” Greiman said.

The purple color palette is a nod to her other grandmother, Wanda. Greiman said Wanda “was also huge in my life” and had been diagnosed with pancreatic cancer right before Greiman started the business.

“The pancreatic cancer ribbon is purple. So the color and the lilac and everything kind of just came together and was just super important to me and sentimental,” Greiman said.

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