It’s been a year since the only grocery remaining in Shoals closed. These days, local food shopping is done at the Dollar General just east of town.
“We miss the JayC,” Shoals resident Hannah Miller said as she and her three kids left the dollar store July 14 with a dozen eggs and a gallon of water. She used to buy groceries at JayC but now drives the 16-mile round trip to Loogootee, which has an IGA, Ruler Foods and DG Market.
Some people living in Shoals travel 25 miles to Washington or Bedford, cities with big grocery stores and Walmart Supercenters.
The town of 670 residents would like to see a new grocery store open up.
“So many of our people don't drive anymore, and we don't have a service that will pick you up and take you to the store,” Dee Tedrow, food manager at Shoals Senior Center, said.
A group of community leaders is exploring options for a locally operated store and whether they could raise enough money and bolster enough support for a start-up that would get inventory from local farmers and businesses.
“This is a problem facing a lot of small towns, and if we can establish some kind of model that could be used elsewhere, maybe we can tap into funds and find support,” said Todd Baker, owner of Bo-Mac’s drive-in restaurant on U.S. 50 at the east edge of Shoals. “We’ve got two stores sitting empty.”
But, for now, “to go grocery shopping, you have to leave town,” Tedrow said.
‘JayC Closing’
Tedrow called the July 2025 closure of the JayC on High Street “devastating.” She remembers when Shoals had three grocers.
A three-sentence story on the front page of The Shoals News confirmed residents’ fears that the store was leaving town: “JayC Closing,” the June 23, 2025, headline announced. “According to reports from local employees, the Shoals JayC will be closing. The store, owned by Kroger, is apparently 1 of 60 stores which will be closed over the next several months. No further information was obtained.”
Kroger cited a desire to operate more efficiently as the reason for closing the JayC.
“It was pretty quick that word got around,” Tedrow recalled. “They didn’t advertise they were leaving until the last minute. They knew the static they would get."
The Dollar General helps fill gaps — and has become common in rural towns. There are more than 700 stores in Indiana, located in or nearby most rural communities. In 2021, the chain added fresh produce to shelves at a quarter of its more than 20,000 U.S. stores.
“They have processed meats like hot dogs, frozen items, milk and cheese, canned goods, and they have limited produce,” Tedrow said. “You can get by, but it’s kind of pricey.”
The Shoals’ Dollar General sits a half mile east of town on U.S. 50 next to a field of 7-foot-tall corn stalks. It sells frozen meals, cured meats and dairy products, among other items. A refrigerated case contains produce, including cabbage, peppers, apples, carrots, limes, lettuce, mushrooms, celery and cucumbers. Six ounces of blueberries were $4.50 and a name-brand strawberry yogurt was $1.
Creative solutions
Baker buys most of his food from wholesale vendors who deliver, but he depended on the nearby JayC when something was needed in a hurry.
Last summer, he set up an outdoor grocery of sorts at the site where town residents could purchase food.
He and his wife drive about an hour each way to a Kroger in Bloomington for their personal groceries but know it’s not an option for many of their neighbors.
“I thought the JayC here had a lot of traffic, but I guess it fell on a worst-performing-stores list and a decision was made,” Baker said.
He thinks Shoals needs a store. “Deep down, I feel like a grocery here would thrive. But with big chain stores not seeing the value of doing business in rural communities, I think whatever happens will have to be local and independent.”
A month after the JayC closed, he established a “Grocery Grab” market in Bo-Mac’s parking lot 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.
“That was a big hit,” Tedrow said.
There's no parking lot market this summer. But Baker and town leaders scheduled a July 16 meeting to discuss the possibility of establishing a small local store. “We have a few places in mind,” he said.
This article first appeared on FPI News and is republished here under a Creative Commons Attribution-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License.
