The Jemison Dollar General recently experienced some much needed upgrades after moving to a new location at 8898 on County Road 42 and held a grand opening celebration on Aug. 5.

The new location is right across the street from the previous location and provides an ample amount of additional space.

Despite the store being open roughly two weeks prior to the grand opening celebration, there was a line of over 75 people wrapped around the building waiting for the doors to open.

District Manager Shawn Baggett handed out $10 gift cards to the first 50 people.

“You’re going to have a big influx of business with a grand opening and you’ve got to geared up for it,” Jemison store manager Eddie Payne said. “They like to see what the new place looks like.”

It is a brand new building that was built with help from the City of Jemison with Dollar General in mind.

“The mayor and the [Jemison] City Council have been real supportive in helping us get the deal to go through,” Baggett said. “It was a clean lot and that is one of the things that made us look at it. We’ll still be in a familiar spot for all our customers.”

It is a noticeable difference inside the store with 10,000 square feet in the new location compared to about 5,900 square feet at the old location. An average Dollar General has 7,000 square feet of space.

“It was just so tight,” Baggett said.

According to Baggett, the previous aisles were three feet wide and left very little room for two shopping carts to fit down at the same time. The aisles have been widened to around seven feet at the new location.

“You can now actually stand back and see what you’re shopping for,” Baggett joked.

The new store will operate under the DG Plus format, which offers an extended selection of dairy and frozen food items.

A normal Dollar General has an average of 14 cooler and freezer doors, while the plus option more than doubles that total with 35 doors.

“A big draw for Dollar General is cleaning and paper products, but now we’re expanding and going into food pretty big,” Payne said. “It makes everything better for everybody, when it comes to the price.”

Dollar General has been a staple in Jemison for the past decade and the continued customer support is a testament to why it has continued to be an economic force in the community despite its below average size.

“When you shop the same store day after day and then something new comes along, it makes a big difference in their shopping experience,” said Maria Smith, from the Thorsby Dollar General.

Several managers from the neighboring locations in Chilton County were on hand during the grand opening of the Jemison location to help anyway that they could.

The transition from locations was nearly seamless and took a week to get all the product transferred and setup. During the move, Dollar General remained opened its regular business hours.

Dollar General is open seven days a week from 7 a.m. to 10 p.m.