When Brian McGregor's father bought a bankrupt grocery store in St. Maries, Idaho, he asked his college-bound son for a favor: come help get it back on its feet before heading back to school. Nearly three decades later, Brian is still there and now stands among IGA's 2026 USA Retailers of the Year.
IGA CEO John Ross spoke with Brian in advance of the IGA Centennial Global Rally for his podcast, For the Greater Good. Watch the interview below, or keep reading for the highlights.
St. Maries is a logging town of roughly 2,600 people at the confluence of the St. Joe and St. Maries Rivers, about an hour from Coeur d'Alene, Idaho. It's the kind of isolated market where a store could easily coast on the basics. Brian's store does the opposite: fresh-cut meat every day, a full-scale bakery, and a service level that holds up against national chains — all in a 26,000-square-foot footprint an hour from the nearest box store competition.
That ambition extends to the clock. Brian's store has run 24 hours a day almost since it reopened, a decision shaped directly by the community it serves. Mill shifts and logging crews heading out at 2 or 3 a.m. created real demand for a store that never closes; and overnight hours also give the team room to stock and merchandise without disrupting daytime shoppers.
What stands out most isn't the hours or the square footage, but rather how the store shows up for St. Maries. This year, Brian's team launched a weekend meal program to address food insecurity among local kids, backed a new veterans outreach center, and supported the community food bank. By their own count, they gave back to more than 60 different organizations last year alone — a tally the team keeps posted on the breakroom door as a reminder of what they've accomplished together.
Brian is quick to deflect credit.
"It's not me that makes the store," he says. "It's the community and the employees that make it."
But that humility is exactly what makes his leadership resonate: a clear standard, consistently maintained, paired with a genuine belief that a grocery store's job is bigger than boxes and cans — it's about feeding a community.
For independent grocers weighing tough markets, staffing challenges, or the pull toward a "good enough" approach, Brian's story is a reminder that consistency, community investment, and a clear sense of purpose can turn even a remote, competitive market into a store people are proud to shop, and proud to work for.
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