Plan B Country Store
Meat Camp, NC

February 7, 2023

I have pretty much lived here my whole life. I had a little stint in Charleston, SC when I was 19 and 20. I own this place and I opened it up 16 years ago. This is how I keep up with how many years it has been open. My partner at the time and I had been together for years. We had met in Charleston. He was from Georgia, so he loved the mountains and really wanted to stay up here. My family has land out this way. We were in Boone and I had just finished school at App and found out I was pregnant. We built a house on some land my parents gave us. My parents gave us this property, but no one in my family had ever ran it, we had just rented it out. Even though our family built it and rented it, no one had ever operated it. When we moved out this way, it would be like 8:00 at night and we would want drinks and snacks, but there was nowhere to go. The guy who had this place at the time had a drink machine and we were always coming, but we said if the guy ever moves, we need to take over this place because people just need somewhere to get stuff here. We had been living out here for a year and the guy who had been operating the space for 6 years decided he was getting out of the business and was done. So we jumped on it and started renovating it. We spent like a year working on it because it was not in the best shape. It was called Plan B because we had come from a food and beverage background. We were actually trying to do more of a breakfast and lunch place, like biscuits and sandwiches. That was not working out with the Health Department too easily though, but the whole time we were here working on it, people would stop and buy canned drinks from us and ask when we were going to be opening. We decided to just open a convenience store. It is a lot easier by the way, food and beverage is a lot of work. We did not know what we were doing with this and right after we opened it, I found out I was pregnant with my second son. I keep up with how long the store has been open by how old he is. Basically we were just in the area and saw the need for it and did it.

If you had the day completely to yourself, how would you spend it?

Well I do get days to myself, so if it is nice I am outside usually, I like to walk my dogs, maybe kayaking. I also just do nothing sometimes and play on my phone for a long time.

What was your favorite memory as a child?

Going to the beach or riding bikes.

What is something you have done once and will never do again?

Jump off a big bridge.