George Brown, the owner of Kiva Grocery and a former Eugene city councilor, died last month from a vascular condition. He was 79.
Brown gradually expanded his store from a bookstore in a downtown Eugene garage mall in 1970 to its current storefront on West 11th Avenue and Olive Street, a beloved natural foods store and deli selling goods from more than 240 vendors in the Willamette Valley.
Family and former colleagues remember Brown, who represented Ward 1 on the Eugene City Council from 2009 to 2017, as a civic force — deeply curious, fiercely dedicated to his business and neighborhood, and never idle…