Glen Arbor — Dollar General has invaded Michigan. The company has conquered both the Upper and Lower Peninsula. They have set up shop peddling cheap garbage in almost every corner of our lovely land. In 2025, Dollar Generals can be found in every single county in Michigan, save one.
Yes, there is one place where they have been stopped, one last county that refuses to fall victim to this rapacious junk monger.
Leelanau County is the final holdout. The final refuge. The only county in the state of Michigan without a single Dollar General is that heavenly peninsula jutting out into Lake Michigan in the northwest corner of the Lower Peninsula.
It’s not that Dollar General is benevolent, leaving one place uncorrupted. They have tried to build here multiple times, but each time the restrictive zoning policies of local governments have made their entrenchment impossible. In the past 10 years, Dollar Generals have been stopped in Empire, Cleveland Township, and Kasson Township.
Characterizing Dollar General as a conquering force and Leelanau’s resistance to its advancements as heroic may sound overblown at first. But it’s not. We have all seen how rapidly Dollar Generals have infiltrated Michigan. We have all seen how they decimate local business and exacerbate food deserts with cheap trash all under the guise of providing “affordable goods.” One lone county holding out against the pressure of Dollar General is a David and Goliath story.
It’s not surprising the last holdout is the Leelanau Peninsula. The Leelanau is, without a doubt, one of the most beautiful places in Michigan. It’s a place of rolling hills, wineries, Sleeping Bear Dunes, and picturesque towns that are just too pretty to feel real in 2025. Big red barns and crop fields bump up against thick woods. Empty winding roads and hilly paths through the woods. Dappled evening light cast over old white houses. The sounds of the waves and the wind. Dunegrass and quiet. Small little stands outside of town where eggs are sold unaccompanied. A hand-made sign, a box for cash, the honor system.
The Leelanau Peninsula is the antithesis of Dollar General. If there were a Dollar General scale, and a strip mall next to a highway on the outskirts of a dirty city scored a 10, the Leelanau would score a zero.
It’s so obvious why Dollar General can’t seem to break through the gates and sully this picturesque place. Of course, the zoning is restrictive and creates a problem for a massive corporation that wants to get a foot in the door before anyone realizes what it’s going on. Of course, the laws are geared toward local preservation and cultural integrity. Of course, the people are inherently hostile toward the idea of a big ugly Dollar General down the road.
These policies and these attitudes make this place what it is: beautiful, small, local, human.
If you love something, you need to protect it, and it’s not only local business or local culture that needs protecting from this menace. It’s our precious land too.
Last year, Dollar General was ordered to stop development in Honor after complaints from residents. It’s not legal to build on Michigan wetlands without a permit, and that is exactly what Dollar General was doing.
Eventually, Dollar General was ordered to restore what it had destroyed, but will the wrong actually be made right? These kinds of orders rarely lead to true repair. Often what is destroyed can never be brought back. It’s true about land, true about towns, true about local economies.
This is why Leelanau as the last holdout is so important. Leelanau, in a very real sense, is a pure representation of an opposite world, an alternate world. A Dollar General-less world.
This company is all about taking cheap garbage from China, plopping it in your backyard where it will break in three months, while siphoning the money out of the local economy and sending it out to a faceless headquarters far away. That’s the world of Dollar General.
Art’s Tavern in Glen Arbor doesn’t take cards. If you pay for your dinner at Art’s with a check from the local credit union, that money stays right there in the Leelanau Peninsula. When you tip with a $10 bill in your wallet, that money goes right into your waitress’s purse.
Art’s is just one little room. The ceiling is covered in university pennants. There’s a pool table in the middle, the kitchen is visible from every table, and it’s filled with families and couples on a Wednesday night in late April. Cash or check only.
It’s a poetic little symbol. It’s everything Dollar General is not.
O.W. Root is a writer based in Northern Michigan, with a focus on nature, food, style, and culture. Follow him on X at @NecktieSalvage.
