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She refers to her shop as an “I forgot it store,” a place where someone might go if they are in need of one or two things and don’t want to make the trip into town. She recognizes that her store now serves a different function then it did historically.
Bubby Settle, of the still thriving Settle’s Grocery in Flint Hill, also sees the level of competition rising due to the increasing mobility of his clientele. He noted that when he was growing up people were excited about the prospect of going into town once a week, but it is now feasible to travel into town daily. The county’s citizens simply “don’t depend on local groceries like they used to,” he said.
Burke, whose property is in the process of being leased to Blue Ridge Mac computer sales and service, feels that the country store may die at the hands of the super chain store and society’s new passion for convenience.
“It’s a changing society. They’ll never be what they were and they’ll never go back,” he said.
But perhaps the horizon is not so bleak for America’s small family business. Several locally-owned stores are recognizing that in order to survive the Wal-Mart trend some of the chain store ideas might need to be adopted, but in
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