The first floor of the two story building next door to Hoffman’s store was occupied in the 1930’s and 1940’s by Holcombe’s Grocery Store. It was sold in the late 1940’s but was renamed as The Dollar Saver and operated by Mac Garrett for more than a decade.
It was a popular store with Montevallo shoppers and did a good business until the Whaley Shopping Center changed the nature of retailing in town, primarily with the advent of the Food Center supermarket. As was noted previously, McCulley’s grocery had to change and expand to meet the new competition, but stores such as The Dollar Saver weren’t in a position monetarily or physically to challenge the interloper. Once Garrett concluded that resistance was futile, he closed his grocery and spent several months giving his store a facelift in order to accommodate something completely different.
When he reopened his doors, The Dollar Store had morphed into a new Firestone franchise store called Montevallo Home & Auto. Among many inventive promotions he devised to bring attention to the new business was a bicycle-built-for-two that he allowed local youths to take out and test-drive on city streets. The Firestone store enjoyed some popularity for a time, but it eventually went under, not being able to garner a similar level of business enjoyed by the other more established hardware and auto supply stores in town.
The first floor remained vacant for a few years before Pep Jeter opened a Feed and Seed business in the space. Jeter had been the owner and operator of long-time Montevallo retailer, Jeter’s Mercantile next door, but he closed his business and transitioned to feed and seed so that The House of Serendipity could take over the large store that his father had run before him. In recent years this first-floor space served as an early venue for the Montevallo Main Street Players as well as a party room for the various restaurants that set up shop in the old Hoffman’s building.
Thank you Clay Nordan, Vice President of the Montevallo Historical Society, for this information!
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