Saving the Small Town Grocery Store

A small grocery store anchors one end of Main Street in the town the Center for Rural Affairs calls home.

If you live in a rural community, you understand that our grocery store is arguably one of the most important businesses in town. Our store means more than just ready access to healthy food. Rural grocery stores provide jobs and generate tax revenue. Without a local grocery, the revenue that our food purchases generate goes elsewhere.



These are just some of the reasons why the local grocery store is a crucial part of any viable community.

On this page, you'll find information, resources and ideas about the preservation of the rural grocery store. You might be interested in the Rural Grocery Toolkit, a step-by-step guide for those who want to open a store or who already own one.

Saving the Small Town Grocery Store

Rural Grocery Stores: Ownership Models that Work for Rural Communities (Opens pdf)
This brief looks at common ownership models used by individuals and rural communities for starting or keeping a local store. It provides examples of such models and analyzes how they address challenges facing rural grocery stores. 10/2010

Rural Grocery Stores: Importance and Challenges (Opens pdf)
This brief examines trends for rural grocery stores, reasons rural communities are losing grocery stores, and the personal and community implications when a community lacks a grocery store. It summarizes the issues and challenges facing rural grocery stores. 10/2010

Feeding More than Stomachs: Strategies for Sustaining the Small Town Grocery Store
The best creative solutions for saving the small town grocery store begin within the community and help residents identify a plan that works for their particular locale. This piece explains the ways several rural communities are keeping the grocery store open in their town. [More...]

8 Steps to Help Small Town Grocery Stores
Everyone needs to eat. Having a grocery store is more than just a place to buy food. It’s a necessity for any vibrant town. Is your town’s grocery store struggling? Or have you lost your grocery store? Here are some simple first steps to get a handle on that situation. (6/2012)

The Local Grocery Store as Critical Infrastructure
When exploring what infrastructure is critical to keeping a rural community vibrant, the Center for Rural Affairs staff kept coming up with two pieces: a school and a local grocery store. There are many more, to be sure, that contribute to a town's viability but the local grocery store is certainly among the first to mind. This piece explores that need. [More...]

America's Youngest Grocer: Nick Graham
As the Center of Rural Affairs' Brian Depew wrote of the then 17-year-old Nick Graham, who brought and took over Truman, Minnesota’s only grocery store when it closed: "Rural main streets across America are struggling to survive, and the shuttering of a grocery store, drug store or hardware store is all too common. As Nick is demonstrating though, innovation, new energy, and the commitment of a new generation can help turn around the fate of a small town." [More...]



Store Closing? No Problem in Cambridge Daily Yonder 
When a regional chain retailer decided to close its store in Cambridge, Nebraska, the town had an answer. Cambridge would open its own.

For Milk, Bread and Heroes: Kansas Groceries, The Daily Yonder
Most Kansas "cities" have fewer than 1500 residents, all wanting a local market when they want it. Who's minding the store and how can they hang on? [More...]

Small Town's Citizens Build Their Own Grocery Store, NPR
The Dakotas have been steadily losing population for three decades. Small towns are drying up, and the loss of something so small but vital as a grocery store can often lead to another ghost town littering the Great Plains. [More...]

Colorado Town Saves Grocery Store, America's Heartland

Petersburg, Nebraska Residents Rally to Save Grocery Store, Grand Island Independent
Larry Temme has poured himself into the Rae Valley Market in Petersburg since buying the tiny grocery store 17 months ago. But now, he’s about to reach his breaking point. Without any drastic changes, he doesn’t see the store making it to the end of the year. [More...]

Summit Aims to Help Kansas' Rural Grocery Stores Survive, Topeka Capital-Journal