Mentioning St. Mike’s Thrift Store opening today (previous post,) made me think of a new store that recently opened in Ridge, the Dollar General Store in the former Raley’s Market site. I haven’t mentioned Dollar General here on the Buzzyblog because everyone has been so ecstatic over it opening up that I didn’t want to appear to be envious or critical of it as a business “competitor”. (I put competitor in quotes, because Buzzy’s Country Store is a competitor to Dollar General kind of like the little kid on the side of the road selling lemonade is a competitor to a McDonalds.)
Bottom line, there is no competition to speak of as 75% of my Buzzy sales are alcohol related. The 25% bait, ice and souvenir business is done in the summer with the seasonal visitors who don’t necessarily care about what store they patronize as long as they can grab and go with what they need.
That said however, anytime I hear someone rave on about the Dollar General a la “Man that Dollar General is great!” or “Wow, have you been in the Dollar General?! It’s got everything!” etc., I cringe a little bit at how sad that something so yucky could be so well accepted here in Ridge. Someone in Buzzy’s said “Only in Ridge would this be a big deal.” I disagreed with them and noted that it just shows you how hard up people in Ridge are/were for a place to sell ’em some goods and take their money. It reminded me of this Billy Joel song.