‘Staple goods and fancy groceries’

By Tony Gonzalez

Published: November 22, 2008

With lines out the door and their one-room store “packed like a subway car,” the four collaborators who opened George Bowers Grocery in Staunton on Saturday were nothing but smiles, selling locally produced cheese and shelling out soup samples from the West Beverly Street address where a similar store stood 100 years before.

Less than four months in the making, the shop of “staple goods and fancy groceries” at 614 W. Beverley takes after a store of the same name found in photos and a newspaper clipping from 1901.

On the shelves: corn kernels, pretzels, produce, flour, tofu and teas.

In the coolers: organic milk, free-range eggs and goods from producers throughout the Shenandoah Valley.

And overhead Saturday: the silent turning of pulley-driven fans and bursts of conversation held over the soup counter.

“Day in and day out, we’ll have people interacting over the counter,” said Brian Wiedemann, motioning to the shelves of groceries he could grab for inquiring shoppers. “When someone comes in it’s like the anti-big-box experience.”

Funded in part by the Staunton Creative Community Fund, the mission behind the grocery is to provide fresh and local food at low prices, co-owner Katie McCaskey said. That mission matches SCCF sustainability goals, community fund board member Erik Curren said Saturday at the store.

“We’re thrilled about this,” said Joy Jackson, who grabbed up local honey and black beans.

The store harkens back to the original George Bowers by selling “necessary paper” — toilet paper — and baking materials, but will also sell soups and breads, with some goods rotating as new orders are sent to producers every Friday, McCaskey said. Many farmers market vendors share shelf space in the store’s coolers. Four stools (one wobbling) stand at front-window counters for soup sippers.

After the early rush Saturday, little could faze the talkative team of McCaskey, Wiedemann and Will and Christie Wright, who all have landed in Staunton, in one way or another, from New York City. The Wrights own The Dirty Bean and had owned the George Bowers storefront for years before launching the grocery.

“Oh, we had a spill on Aisle 14!” Christie Wright called when a popcorn bag splayed across the wood floor. Then, laughing about the simple room: “Oh, it’s Aisle 1.”