Cornerstone IGA in Daniels, West Virginia, will shut its doors for good on Monday, November 30, 2026, closing out 20 years of serving the Raleigh County community. The grocery store's owners say the decision was not an easy one to make.
According to wvnstv.com, the announcement states that the Daniels store is closing after two decades of operation. The outlet reports that the Cutlip family, which runs Cornerstone IGA, did not include specific reasons for the closure in its statement, but made clear that the decision weighed heavily on the family.
Despite the Daniels closure, the Cutlip family's other two stores are not going anywhere. As WVVA reports, the Lewisburg and Mullens locations will stay open for business, giving the family a continued presence in the region even as the Daniels community loses its longtime grocer.
A Family Business Says Goodbye to Daniels
In its statement, the company expressed gratitude toward the customers, families, and community members who supported the store over the years. The same wvnstv.com report notes the company said, “This decision was not an easy one, and we want to take a moment to express our sincere gratitude,” thanking the Daniels community for its memories and friendships built over two decades.
The closure leaves a gap in Daniels.
Part of a Wider Pattern for Independent Grocers
Cornerstone IGA operates under the Independent Grocers Alliance banner, a cooperative rather than a single corporate chain, which means individual stores close for a variety of owner-specific reasons rather than one company-wide directive, according to Inc. That same report found that IGA is closing multiple stores nationwide in 2026, with retail analyst Jeremy Bowman describing the trend as a natural casualty of industry consolidation and the rise of e-commerce.
Inc. also notes that researchers point to a broader consequence of rural grocery closures: they can cut off food access while eliminating local jobs and sales tax revenue for the communities that lose them. Food access is already a strained issue in parts of West Virginia. Mountain State Spotlight has reported that people in large swaths of the state's most rural areas are less likely than most to have a car and more likely to live more than 20 miles from a grocery store, citing USDA data.
The same outlet reported that a U.S. Census survey found more than 20% of West Virginia residents said they sometimes or often went without food in their households over the prior week, the highest share of any state in the country. Mountain State Spotlight has also documented cases where grocery closures were reversed under pressure, noting that Senator Joe Manchin intervened when a Braxton County Kroger was on the verge of shutting down, and the company reversed course.
For now, Daniels residents have until the end of the month to shop at the Cornerstone IGA before it closes permanently, while the Cutlip family continues operating its Lewisburg and Mullens locations.
