In many rural communities, the only grocery mainstay is a Dollar General. Shoals, Indiana, has been on that list for a year since its last remaining grocery store, JayC, closed. Its 670 residents had begun to "fill the gaps" with limited Dollar General inventory, reported Laura Lane for The Daily Yonder. But one resident aims to change that by opening a locally-owned and operated grocery store in the near future.
Lane reports that Kroger, the parent company of JayC, cited a desire to operate more efficiently as the reason for closing the store, but residents say they were not given notice about the closure until “the last minute.”
Ever since, some residents had to “travel 25 miles to Washington or Bedford, cities with big grocery stores and Walmart Supercenters.” Others cannot drive or order a driving service because those don’t exist in Shoals.
The Dollar General half a mile east of town carries “processed meats like hot dogs, frozen items, milk and cheese, canned goods, and they have limited produce,” a Shoals resident told Lane. “You can get by, but it’s kind of pricey.”
To combat Shoal’s new food desert, Todd Baker, owner of Bo-Mac’s drive-in restaurant on the town’s eastern edge, set up a “Grocery Grab” in the parking lot of his restaurant every Tuesday evening for 12 weeks.
"Vendors sold Amish-grown produce, local meats, Prairie Farms dairy products and fresh-baked sourdough bread. People came and stocked up." With the popularity of the parking-lot grocery, Baker and local officials are now collaborating to discuss the possibility of opening a small grocery store.
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