Longtime neighborhood grocery store closing

DIXON – The Dixon Food Center, a neighborhood staple for decades, is closing its doors after 42 years.

The grocery store at 500 Chicago Ave. has been up for sale for the better part of a year, owner Dan Willard said.

He has no buyer yet, but nonetheless plans to close soon, the 67-year-old Dixon man said.

“We’ll have a better idea about what is happening with the store next week, once our inventory goes,” Willard said. Everything is 10 percent off.

Its departure will leave Oliver’s Corner Market, 748 N. Brinton Ave., as the city’s only independently owned grocery.

Willard has worked at the store for 45 years, even before it was the Dixon Food Center. He bought the store, commonly called the Red Fox, 18 years ago.

In 1976, Midwestern grocery store chain National Tea Co. closed shop there, and Hoerr & Son Co., a food distributor out of Peoria, bought the store, changed the name to the Dixon Food Center and gave it its signature red fox logo.

Willard plans to take some time off after the store closes for good, and then contemplate retiring, he said.

The store is open from 7 a.m. to 8 p.m. 7 days a week day for the foreseeable future. Call 815-288-1138 or find Dixon Food Center on Facebook for updates and more information.