Dewayne Moon Retires From Ingles After 45-Year Grocery Store Career

By LYDIA BERGLAR
News Editor

“Most grocery store managers can come and go without it having an impact on a community, but Dewayne is the exception.” So said General Bob Woods in the wake of Dewayne Moon’s retirement after a 45-year career spent working in grocery stores. “The fact that the community regrets that he is retiring speaks to what a great citizen he is.”

Most recently, Moon managed the Trenton Ingles location, but his career began in 1980 at Red Food (before it became BI-LO). He retired at the end of May, and the community was quick to sing his praises. Linda Wilson said, “One of the great things about Dewayne is that he knows many of his customers by name, and when he sees you, he always stops and chats and asks how you are doing. My 92-year-old mother always gets a hug from him.”

Rhonda Reeves said, “His impression is not just Ingles. He makes an impression on anybody he meets.”

A Dade County native, Moon graduated from Northwest Georgia High School (before it became Dade County High School). He started working as a bagger at Red Food in 1980. (Red Food became BI-LO in 1995, and BI-LO went bankrupt between 2018-2021). This store was located at the corner of Highway 11 and GA-136 where Advance Auto now sits.

Over the years, Moon moved up the ladder, taking on more roles and responsibilities. In 1983, he became a stocker. In 1988, he became a night manager and later an assistant manager. In 1993, he became the store manager at the Dunlap, Tenn., Red Food location.

Throughout his time with Red Food and BI-LO, he managed stores in small towns, the city, and the suburbs. A desire to work close to home brought him to the Trenton Ingles location in 2004 where he spent the last 21 years as store manager.

He enjoyed all parts of the job (both at Red Food/BI-LO and at Ingles), but his favorite part was interacting with the customers, especially the Ingles customers. “The customers I had at Ingles were the best customers I ever interacted with in my life,” said Moon. “Customers are always the most important thing in any business. Without them, you don’t have a business.”

The appreciation was mutual, with loyal Ingles customers quick to express how much they enjoyed seeing Moon at the store. As Sarah Duble said, “Dewayne always welcomed you to Ingles like it was his home. He greeted people by name and asked about their kids. He watched my kids grow up and seemed genuinely interested in what they were doing. He was a staple at Ingles, and it won’t be quite the same without him.”

Ann Brown recalled, “Dewayne became a part of my family when he was a young boy. As a child, he was always thoughtful of others, and as he grew into a teenager and young man, he never lost the special feeling of wanting to help people. He makes friends everywhere he goes, and he’ll be missed by so many that came into Ingles.”

Woods added, “Organizations take on the personalities of their leadership, and every employee at Ingles was always very helpful and willing to assist in any way that they could. Dewayne was very supportive of the community as a whole. He assisted the American Legion with events, and he helped numerous other organizations. I wish him the very best in this phase of his life, and it is a well-deserved retirement.”

Besides customers, employees are the other key part of a store, and Moon was an expert at building a quality team. He managed 75-80 people at Ingles, saying, “I didn’t hire people; I hired personalities. If you approach me for a job, I’m going to say, ‘I don’t need you. Why don’t you come back in a few days?’”

He would then pay attention to the person’s body language when faced with rejection. “We’re all going to be rejected in any kind of business at some time or another, so I want to see how you react and if you come back when I asked you to. That’s your first interview whether you realize it or not because I can teach you the job, but I can’t teach you how to act.”

Over the years, he hired many high schoolers and first-time job seekers, and he enjoyed watching them succeed at Ingles and beyond. He understands, though, that people work because they need money. “One question I always ask after I hire somebody is why they got a job. They’ll give me ten different answers, but I’ll say, ‘That’s not why. There’s only one reason: We work for money.’ It can be fulfilling, but you do it for the money.”

Moon has also had the pleasure of hiring many vocational rehabilitation employees. “I don’t do it for a tax credit,” he said. “They need a job too, they need a chance, and they’re great employees.”

Even though Moon still loved his job when he retired, he knew it was time—partly so that he and his wife, Dorinda, could enjoy traveling this summer. “I still enjoyed my job when I left, but you get to the point when you know it’s time,” he said.

Dorinda’s been putting him to work at The Shop by Stevie and the Moon, which is just fine with the newly retired Moon who said, “I’ve got to have something to do.”

Of Moon’s contribution to the community, Kathy Gossett said, “Anytime you needed anything for any kind of fundraiser, all you had to do was go ask Dewayne. Hot dog buns, hamburger buns, ice, paper plates—Dewayne would always help you out.”

Ingles also supports education through the “Tools for Schools” program and a $1,000 scholarship presented to a Dade County High School graduating senior. This year, Moon presented it to Connor Cash.

Moon also donated the store’s banana boxes to the Tri-State Food Pantry. The cost of the sturdy boxes quickly adds up, so most Ingles locations send them back to the banana supplier to be reused, but Moon got approval to donate the boxes to the food pantry.

Over the last 45 years, Moon worked through the blizzard of 1993, Y2K, the tornadoes of 2011, COVID-19 in 2020, the high inflation of the last few years, and Hurricane Helene in 2024.

As a store manager, he didn’t like snow scares, explaining, “Yes, it’s great for sales in the short term, but eventually it balances out. The next couple days are really slow.” When he had a heads up before bad weather, he’d try to staff the store appropriately, but even then, it was hard to keep up.

He was working at the Ooltewah, Tenn., Red Food location during the blizzard of ’93. “It’s a huge store, but you couldn’t walk in the store because there were so many people.”

Y2K was worse than any snow scare, according to Moon. (This was the end of the 20th century when people feared the digital infrastructure would collapse due to the switch from 1999 to 2000 in computer systems). “It was probably crazier at Y2K than anything else we’ve experienced. Everyone came in those last few days leading up to New Year’s, and New Year’s Eve is always super busy anyway.”

Moon said that sales were through the roof during COVID-19 as well, but this was spread out over weeks and months.

Of the 2011 tornadoes, Gossett said, “Dewayne brought Ingles back to life after the tornado hit the store.” Throughout that day, Moon had everyone in the store—employees and customers—ready to take shelter in the cooler.

“It was April 27, 2011,” he recalled. “I was walking around the store, and it was pitch black outside. I thought, ‘My goodness, how long have I been here today?’ I looked at my phone and it said 5:39 p.m.”

Just before the third tornado of the day came through, everyone at the store headed toward the coolers. This tornado damaged the store. “Structural engineers said the tornado picked up the roof and set it back down,” said Moon.

The store closed for four months, and the employees had to file for unemployment or get another job. Many, like Moon, worked at other Ingles locations until the Trenton location reopened. The store was not only repaired but also got a bit of a facelift. Amazingly, almost all of Moon’s employees came back. Instead of building a new team, he reassembled the old one.

Of the recent years of heavy inflation, Moon said, “As a store manager, we have no control over the cost of goods. A lot of people think stores were inflating prices for no reason. No—our profit margins were shrinking after COVID-19.”

He added that raising employees’ wages causes increased prices, so stores must balance the need for competitive, fair pay with competitive, affordable prices for customers.

He remembers that in the 80s when he was a stocker, Campbell’s tomato soup sold for 19 cents a can, and the brand’s chicken noodle soup was four for $1.00. Today, both soups are $1.68 for a 10.75 ounce can.

As for Hurricane Helene (which hit the Ingles headquarters in Asheville, N.C. last fall), Moon said Trenton’s supply chain was only interrupted for about a month. “It shocked me how quick they got it back up and going after what happened up there. One section of the warehouse was about four feet underwater, and they lost millions of dollars of inventory.”

All of the store managers in our district—Moon included—asked if they could go to North Carolina to help, but due to washed out and blocked roads, they couldn’t get to the headquarters.

The Sentinel asked how the current Food City expansion might impact Ingles, to which Moon said, “Anytime you have a competitor open up, it’s going to negatively impact the store for a little while because people are going to go and see, but in my opinion, that’s where your employees come into effect.”

During employee orientation, Moon would ask new hires what they’ve seen at other stores—the good and the bad. “But I tell them that the biggest difference I want between other stores and ours is I want better people. I want to have people that are going to take care of that customer that comes in. I say, ‘If I’d give you $100, would I have your undivided attention?’ They say, ‘Yes, you would,’ and I say that’s what the customer is trying to do.”

Moon’s tips for saving money at Ingles are to look at the sales ads but also go in and look for yellow sale tags because these sales aren’t advertised. “You have to go in and take the time to shop. There’s always good prices in every category with something on sale in every category.”

He also recommends being willing to try a different brand. “If the brand you always buy is not on sale, get a comparable brand when it is on sale.”

As for Moon, he’ll continue to shop at Ingles much of the time. “I’ve told people forever that even if I didn’t work there, I’d always shop there, especially for meat and dairy because of the high-quality beef and the Ingles-owned dairy company.”

When it came time for Moon to retire, the store might have promoted from within if a current employee had wanted the job. However, no one did, so Ingles hired Chris Smith from the Jasper, Tenn., location. Moon tells Ingles customers to welcome Smith and “give him a good Dade County welcome.”