May 29, 2019
By: Dwayne Page
DeKalb County will soon be getting a new Dollar General Store.
The site, currently under development, is located on Highway 56 south near Magness Road. It is reportedly scheduled to open June 13. It will become the fifth Dollar General Store in DeKalb County. The company has applied for an “off” premises permit to sell beer at the new location. The county beer board will consider the application June 10 at 7 p.m. at the courthouse.
Dollar General Corp. is a U.S. chain of variety stores headquartered in Goodlettsville, Tennessee.
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”.