The Giant is headed west. Brian Kingery is fulfilling his father’s dream of opening a grocery store in McLeansboro. What was Food Park at 309 Randolph in McLeansboro will officially become Little Giant Jr. on Saturday with a soft opening. In a way, this is the fulfillment of a dream that started back in the 1970’s.
My dad used to call on Food Park in the 70’s as a food broker. He always had a special place in his heart for Food Park. He moved to McLeansboro a few years ago and he got sick and passed away in February. But without fail, almost every trip to dialysis, he would talk about that store and just say he wished we could own that at some point. It was my dad’s dream all along, but he made me realize if the opportunity came up I should jump on it. So, it’s been in the works since the 1970’s when he wanted to acquire it.
Little Giant Grocery in Carmi opened it’s doors in 2000 after 8 successful years as Kingery and Associates Grocery Wholesale. The Kingery’s didn’t just want to open a grocery store. They wanted to serve their community.
His dream was to have a store one day. He and my mom both had food insecurity as kids. They grew up in poverty. So my dad was a food broker after he got out of the military and did that until about 1992 when he started Kingery & Associates. And he promised my mom one day she would have her own grocery store so in 2000, we broke ground for Little Giant.
Little Giant in Carmi not only competes, they stare down a national competitor from across the street and have carved out a niche that has shoppers coming from counties and even states away. The secret? Low prices and a cliché that’s not just said, it’s lived.
I give all the credit to my dad and people like John Williams. Anything I’ve learned I’ve absorbed through people like that. They’ve been in business for a long time. When you walk in the door, we treat you like family. We have people who have worked with us for more than 20 years. When they come in the door, we want folks to find something new each time. We try to keep it fresh and new product in rotation so not only do we save you on pricing, but we also have a great variety that changes sometimes daily.
Little Giant Jr will adopt the same hours, 7am – 7pm seven days a week as Little Giant in Carmi eventually, but the store will start Saturday as a 6am – 9pm as has been tradition at the McLeansboro store.
In the new year, Little Giant Jr. will also get it’s own “giant”.
So our statue is one of our big draw points. There are websites dedicated to it. It’s been in a Toby Keith video. Finding another one proved to be quite difficult, impossible actually. They’re in private collections or still in store locations. So one of the things I’m excited about is we found somebody in California that’s going to refab a Big Boy statue to look just like Little Giant Jr. but instead of the hamburger being held, it’ll be a sack of groceries. So, just a little eye catcher.
The statue in Carmi is about 30 feet. The Little Giant Jr. will be about 7 feet.