The Shelby Report of the Southwest congratulates JIM BROWN on his induction into the

Lifelong grocer credits success to lessons learned from father

Jim Brown, owner of Doc’s Food Stores, headquartered in Bixby, Oklahoma, has been inducted into Shelby Publishing’s Food Industry Hall of Fame.

Brown has been working in the grocery business since he was knee-high. His father, Roy “Doc” Brown, owned and operated a grocery store in Bixby after moving to the small town just outside of Tulsa in 1946.

Brown’s dad had a brief stint in the grocery business prior to working as an aviation mechanic. From there, he joined the U.S. Army Air Corps and was discharged in 1945. He and his wife, Betty, moved to Bixby to run the store, known at that time as The Packing House, when he was in his mid-20s. They had four children – the first in November 1946 –with Jim as the only boy.

On Sundays after church, Doc would bring Jim and his sisters to the store, which was closed. Before starting to write his order for the warehouse, his dad sat the children down on the floor and put them to work facing Pet milk cans.

“We’d have to turn them so the cows were all pointing forward…Then we’d get into it, and Dad would have to holler across four aisles.”

The weekly family trip would follow, as Brown’s parents drove to Tulsa to put the order in the mail slot at the warehouse.

His first real job at his father’s store was organizing pop bottles. “My first paycheck was a pop and some brownies. I worked cheap.”

Brown recalled wanting to buy a ring for his girlfriend when he was in second grade. He took returnable bottles from his house to a competitor and collected the money. “I went to the dime store to buy the ring. And I got caught. They say I was a mess.”

When he was about 9, Brown said he quit his job with his dad for one week to go work for the carnival when it came into town. His dad always got free ride tickets for letting the carnival folks get water and use the store bathroom.

Brown said a friend had told him the carnival was “paying big bucks.” He said they worked hard and got paid – in ride tickets. “I was sick. I had quit my only job. I told him, ‘Daddy, if you hire me back, I’ll never leave. And he hired me back and I never left.”

Growing up in Bixby, which had a population around 1,000 at the time, Brown said everyone knew him and his dad. They also had his dad’s phone number.

Around age 14, Brown said he had joined the sons of the local Baptist and Methodist preachers in a plan to egg and toilet paper someone’s house on Halloween. A deputy stopped them as they were walking down the sidewalk, carrying a bag filled with the evidence. He took them to jail, a small concrete building with a couple of cells, and told them they could get out if they called their parents.

“Both the preachers’ boys called their parents. I said, ‘Don’t call my dad.’ He had already told me if I ever got put in jail, don’t call him. I said I was going to have to wait it out.”

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The deputy ended up calling Brown’s dad, and he was released.

Brown said his father was his greatest teacher.

He took over the business at age 35, following his dad’s death. He said every time he’d think about how tough things were, he would look at a photo of his dad in his mid-20s and think about what he went through.

“I had to tell myself, ‘Hey, you think you’ve got it tough. You’ve still got some business.’ He came with zero. He opened those doors at zero business.”

Brown recalled a time when he and his dad were in the store, and his dad asked him the name of a lady who was shopping. Then he asked him her husband’s name, her children’s names. When Brown replied he didn’t know, his dad asked him how he was ever going to run the store if he didn’t know his customers.

“I said, ‘Dad, I have enough trouble remembering my own name.’ He said, ‘What are you going to do?’ I said, ‘I’m going to hire people that are smarter than me that can do that.’ And he said, ‘You always have some wise answer.’”

His dad put Brown in the meat department in 1964. They had just moved into a larger store, at 9,000 square feet.

“He didn’t know anything about a meat market, and his butchers just controlled him.” Brown said when he eventually took over, he went through three butchers in the first six months, trying to find the right fit. After the last one left, Brown attended a meat seminar where he learned how to run the department.

“I’ve still got my notebook. I learned what that market manager was supposed to be doing, exactly. Know how to cut this, how to do this, how to schedule, all this good stuff. Because I’d had it.”

Brown said his dad wanted him to be in a position “where nobody could pull the wool over my eyes. They couldn’t lie to me. They couldn’t tell me, ‘You can’t do it that way.’ And that’s how I learned the grocery business.”

He attended Tulsa Junior College for a while at age 21, planning to obtain a college degree. While taking an economics class, he wanted to talk to his professor. At that time, Brown was married and had his son, Courtney, and was working 50 hours a week while taking classes.

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“When I think of how to define the independent grocers that comprise the membership of AWG, Jim Brown is the perfect example and an icon. Jim’s roots go back to 1946, when his family started with an 1,800-square-foot store on Main Street in small-town Oklahoma. Jim worked in every conceivable job in the store and learned every aspect of the business until he bought out his father and became the company owner.

“Under Jim’s ownership, the company with humble roots grew to as many as 20 stores, and today they own and operate 12 stores under multiple banners in northeast Oklahoma. Jim has handed the reins for the day-to-day to his son, Courtney, but remains actively involved in supporting the company as chairman.

“Jim’s focus was not solely on his company, employees and customers. He has been integral to the success of the independent grocer through his ongoing service in the Oklahoma Grocers Association, the National Grocers Association and as a board member of Associated Wholesale Grocers since 2003. He has advocated for the industry from the Oklahoma Capitol to Washington, D.C., and everywhere in between.

“In recognition of Jim’s service to the industry and his unending support to the communities he serves, he was awarded AWG’s highest honor as the Lou Fox Community Service Award winner in 2021. He has also received numerous awards and recognition from Oklahoma Grocers and the National Grocers Association.

“Above and beyond his years of service and the awards and honors he has received, Jim is especially highly regarded by AWG and its member retailers. He is a strong and loyal advocate for the cooperative’s small and rural retail members. He ensures their interest is represented and respected in our actions, investments and initiatives. He takes calls from new retailers and is always ready, willing and able to assist them with their challenges.

“We are so proud of Jim, and it’s a real privilege to see him being inducted into Shelby’s Food Industry Hall of Fame. A well-deserved award to an extraordinary grocer and great individual.”