When they do, they will say goodbye to a business they started 39 years ago on North Brinton Avenue, where Murphy’s Grocer once stood.
“We hope to travel and play golf,” said Patty Oliver about their retirement.
“I plan to do some fishing,” Tim Oliver said.
The couple met in an old A&P store on Third Street in Dixon. The building is now a dollar store. They became a couple, and then they left the southside business to start their own after he became the store manager.
“We learned really quick that there is a big difference in managing and owning,” Tim Oliver, who grew up in the Lee County Housing Authority, said. “To run a successful business, you need to be on 24/7.”
“Owning the business also means what we spend comes out of our pocket,” Patty Oliver, who grew up on a farm near Amboy, said.
Since the early 1990s, the store’s Saturday lunch cookouts for local charities have become a popular way for groups to raise funds for their causes. The cookouts start early Spring and go to early Autumn.
“We started them after a girl in the neighborhood needed a kidney transplant,” Patty Oliver said. “Before that, we had circus day, with a petting zoo and rides.”
The cookouts have become so popular with local groups that all the Saturdays are taken within the first week of the New Year. According to Tim Oliver, an organization can make up to $2,500 for one cookout.
“The biggest one was for the Honor Flight we had during Petunia Fest,” Tim Oliver said. “Donation jars really help.”
The Saturday lunch cookouts during warmer weather have been taken over by County Market grocery store in Dixon, according to Tim Oliver.
Over the 39 years they have been in business, the Olivers have employed their children, nieces, and nephews. The store usually has between 20 to 25 employees.
“I suspect I’ll have mixed feelings when we close,” Tim Oliver said. “But I’m looking forward to retirement.”
The store currently has everything on sale for what the couple calls “the beginning of the end.”
“We’re still not sure who we’ll lease the building to yet,” Tim Oliver said. “We’ve had a lot of interest in the place.”
