Streeter Grocery owner Peggy Perman said there's no secret formula to her success. The store she owns in Streeter, population 150, is doing just fine, she said.

The "thank you" goes to the folks who live in town and shop at her store, instead of driving 45 minutes to Jamestown or more than an hour the other direction to Bismarck.

The distance helps. But that's not the only factor.

Perman said she enjoys people, so that helps, too.

The main reason Streeter's grocery sells nearly $1,000 worth of groceries on a good average day - better during fall hunting season - is because people believe in the store and they want it to be there.

"If they don't believe, they'll have to drive to Jamestown for a jug of milk," she said.

Perman bought the store a few months ago, after managing it for more than three years.

She said her banker joked that she was buying herself a job, and she was. She works 50 to 60 hours a week, but she works for herself and she pays herself a living wage.

She stocks the store with fresh meat and produce and tries to offer a choice on most items.

Perman said her store has a future, because folks in the community want it to be there when they're older and couldn't drive to Jamestown even if they wanted to.

Perman isn't too worried about grocery and retail super stores.

She thinks people have had enough of the chaos of that scale of shopping, trying to find what they need in an acre of shelving and are now trying to get back to what it used to be.

"They're ready to chuck all the bright lights," she said.

Lauren Donovan