DeKalb County Getting Another Dollar General Store

DeKalb County will soon be getting a new Dollar General Store.
The site, currently under development, is located on Highway 56 (Cookeville Highway) near Buckner’s Chapel Methodist Church just north of Smithville.
DeKalb County already has a Dollar General Store in Smithville, at the top of Snow Hill, and at Alexandria.
According to the company website, Dollar General anticipates opening 730 new stores in 2015 and plans to remodel or relocate an additional 875 stores. The company also plans to create more than 7,000 new jobs in 2015. Dollar General’s continued growth has created 30,000 new jobs since 2009.
Dollar General Corp. is a U.S. chain of variety stores headquartered in Goodlettsville, Tennessee. As of May 30, 2015, Dollar General operated 12,000 stores in 40 U.S. states.
The stores were founded in 1939 by Cal Turner in Scottsville, Kentucky as J.L. Turner & Son, Inc. In 1968, the business changed its name to Dollar General Corporation. In 2007, the company was acquired by the private equity firm Kohlberg Kravis Roberts & Co. (KKR), which took the company public in 2009.
Dollar General offers both name brand and generic merchandise — including off-brand goods and closeouts of name-brand items — in the same store, often on the same shelf. Although it has the word “dollar” in the name, Dollar General is not a dollar store. Most of its products are priced at more than $1.00. However, goods are usually sold at set price points of penny items and up to the range of 50 to 60 dollars, not counting phone cards and loadable store gift cards.
Dollar General often serves communities that are too small for Wal-Marts (although many locations are in relatively close driving distance to a Wal-Mart store). It competes in the dollar store format with national chains Family Dollar and Dollar Tree, regional chains such as Fred’s in the southeast, and numerous independently owned stores.
Since the turn of the century, Dollar General has also experimented with stores that carry a greater selection of grocery items. These stores (similar to the Wal-Mart Supercenter, but much smaller) operate under the name “Dollar General Market”.