"So that doesn't mean we're getting a grocery store, but it does mean that they are willing to talk to us again," Baxter Mayor Danny Holmes told The UC Now this week, after city staff reached out to Food City and the chain agreed to meet. Then he added the line any buyer comparing Baxter and Cookeville should hear: "Of course, I felt good about it last time and it just didn't happen."
That quote sums up how retail comes to a small town. Grocery chains don't open stores in places that are growing. They open them in places that have finished enough of their growth to show up in the numbers. Baxter is partway there. If you're thinking about buying here, the useful question is how far along the town is, and what daily life looks like until it gets the rest of the way.
Same pitch, three years apart
Baxter has been courting a full-service grocer longer than many newer residents have lived here. The record from local reporting looks like this:
| When | What happened |
|---|---|
| August 2023 | Then-Mayor John Martin told the Board of Aldermen the city was in talks with an unnamed large grocery chain. A Dollar General Market and a Family Dollar Market had already been approved. |
| September 2023 | Martin met with the chain, showed it home counts from the prior six months, and said the decision was "in their hands now." |
| February 2026 | Mayor Holmes said retailers were asking for "more industry" and "more rooftops" before they would commit. |
| October 1, 2026 | Holmes reopened talks with Food City. No meeting date is set yet. |
The 2023 reports never named the chain, so there's no public record showing whether that earlier attempt involved Food City. The pitch itself has hardly changed: count the houses and hope the chain's marketing team agrees. In 2023, Martin described it this way: "All we could do was give them the numbers."
The demand has been there all along. Martin said residents asked him about a grocery store "every day when you walk down the street" and that the question had been "going on for years." Wanting a store has never been the issue. What a chain looks for is a different set of numbers.
What a grocery chain is counting
Holmes said it plainly in February: "What they're telling me is we need more industry, we need more rooftops. And that's coming. That's coming, that's coming, of course we want it to happen yesterday and unfortunately it doesn't work that fast."
That gives you a sequence to follow. Factories bring jobs. Jobs bring households. Households show up as finished homes. Retailers act once those homes exist. Baxter's industrial base is now much further along than it was during the 2023 pitch.
- Portobello America opened its Baxter plant and U.S. headquarters in October 2023. By June 2026, the Upper Cumberland Business Journal described it as a $160 million plant of nearly 1 million square feet that had created more than 200 jobs since opening.
- Anatolia Cabinet and Millwork chose Baxter for a new facility, the Tennessee Department of Economic and Community Development announced on November 6, 2025, with $9.6 million in investment and 56 planned jobs. UCBJ reported that grading and infrastructure work had started on about 3.4 acres off Ward Mill Road, with official documents projecting full buildout in just over 1,200 days. UCBJ's story also gives a $13 million figure, so the state number is the safer one to rely on.
- Road work for industry is happening too. TDOT closed Ditty Road on March 2, 2026, to build State Industrial Access improvements serving Portobello, with an estimated closure of about six months. A separate industrial access road from Highway 56 to Ward Mill Road received preliminary state approval in February 2025. At that point its alignment wasn't set, and it was tied to an expansion expected to bring several hundred jobs.
The houses are coming next. Building Inspector Bob Lane said this month that 22 new homes are under construction in Baxter, including 15 on Main Street and six townhouses, with more going up on First Avenue. "Hopefully we've got enough rooftops now to start attracting businesses," he said. He also mentioned calls from parties interested in sites "around the interstate," and Holmes said an unnamed auto parts store has asked about opening a location.
Put together, that's the order a chain wants to see. The jobs are in place, and the homes for those workers are being built right now. A grocery store would come after the homes, not alongside them.
Where the weekly grocery run happens today
For a buyer, that gap is part of daily life. The nearest full-service supermarkets listed in the chains' own store directories are in Cookeville:
- Food City, 1545 East 10th Street, Cookeville
- Kroger, 445 S. Jefferson Ave., Cookeville
Closer to home, a business directory lists Baxter Bi-Rite at 221 Broad St. as a grocery store and Little Dodge Market and Deli at 8506 Cookeville Boat Dock Road as a market. The directory isn't dated, so call ahead before counting on either for a weeknight stop. The dollar-format grocery markets approved in 2023 add some groceries, but the reports disagree on the brand. One names a Family Dollar Market, and the Herald-Citizen describes a planned 10,000-square-foot Dollar Tree Market off Nashville Highway at Oliver Way, across from the Dollar General.
When you tour a home in Baxter, plan the full grocery trip into Cookeville as a regular errand, and check where the house sits relative to I-40 and Highway 56. A house on the Cookeville side of town and one on a rural road farther out share the same ZIP code, but grocery day looks very different from each.
Why the town has its own stake in the outcome
Baxter wants a grocery store for more than convenience. In February, Holmes said the goal isn't to become another Cookeville but to offer enough local services to keep tax dollars in Baxter. He also said the town hasn't raised taxes in over 15 years and depends on retail growth to operate.
So a grocery store matters to the town's budget as well as to shoppers. Holmes said Baxter will "definitely" offer incentives, and the town is working with the Business Resource Collective to reach investors. He pointed to Cookeville's long wait for Home Depot and Target as an example of retail that took years of talk before it opened. "One day it's gonna be a reality in Baxter too," he said. "It just takes a little time."
Retail is already moving in smaller ways. A strip mall called The Hive was under development on Highway 56 as of February. A Domino's opened at 135 Fast Lane earlier this year, and Love's Travel Stop at 110 Fast Lane announced a full remodel in July. Baxter has also been trying to recruit a Baskin-Robbins. Smaller businesses like these need fewer households to break even than a full supermarket does, which is why they tend to arrive first.
Reading the next headline
Grocery news in Baxter will keep coming, and some of it will sound bigger than it is. These are the milestones that would show a store is actually on the way, roughly in the order they'd happen:
- A set meeting date with Food City. As of October 1, there wasn't one.
- A named site. Neither the 2023 nor the 2026 reporting identifies a parcel.
- Board of Aldermen action on incentives, zoning, or site work, which would appear on the city's published agendas.
- Finished homes on Main Street and First Avenue, plus Anatolia's Ward Mill Road facility reaching its planned staffing.
Until those happen, base your plans on the Cookeville grocery run. If the store does arrive, it's a nice bonus.
Frequently asked questions
Is Food City coming to Baxter? Nothing is confirmed. As of October 1, 2026, Food City has agreed to talk again, but no meeting date has been set, and Mayor Holmes said the talks don't mean a store is coming.
Where is the closest full-service supermarket to Baxter? The closest ones listed in the chains' directories are Food City at 1545 East 10th Street and Kroger at 445 S. Jefferson Ave., both in Cookeville.
Is new housing still being built in Baxter? Yes. The city's building inspector counted 22 homes under construction as of early October 2026, including 15 on Main Street and six townhouses.
Weighing Baxter against Cookeville often comes down to everyday questions like how far the grocery store is, which roads you'll use most, and what's being built nearby. Tammy and Lindsey work out of the Baxter office and follow these developments closely. If you'd like help figuring out how a specific home fits your daily routine, Lindsey Bruce and Tammy are glad to walk through it with you. Contact Us.
