A Favorite Shop of Mine
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Recently, Nano and I took a little trip to a favorite shop of mine. It’s pretty far away from us, making it a very long car ride, but it’s always worth it! Usually we make a day of it and spend time in the area around the shop, so it’s not that bad. Makes the several hours in the car worth it haha.
This time round we wanted to grab some quick gifties for our family, as well as some shakes to go. It’d been a while since my last visit, probably a year or so. Luckily this place rarely if ever changes.
This little store has been a go to spot for my family, friends and I for years. My mom once lived a few towns over, so we used to make the trip more often. It’s a bizarre shop for sure, but there’d a lot of charm to it. It’s… well how does one describe it? It’s kind of like one of those shops you’d find on the side of the road attached to a little diner. It has some weird, almost road trip/fair like vibes to it. All the deep fried food, the sweets, the BBQ.
When you first walk in, one half of the store looks to be some sort of outdated pop culture mini shop. Then on the other side you have an awesome BBQ pit-esque restaurant with tons of options. All the BBQ food you could ever want, deep fried everything, and best of all, shakes. They make the best hand crafted shakes I’ve ever had. Heck we bought our shakes and left them in the car for 15 minutes. Came out after shopping and they were still nice and thick! But aside from all that, they also offer all kind of exotic meats. Ostrich eggs, buffalo meat, gator, so many options. That and mountains of jerky!
Once you walk past those two sections, there’s a little bar and eating area. Obviously they were closed down currently, but they still have this adorable, rustic, hand made log dining area. I never usually eat there, too close to other people even without a virus for me, but it’s still quaint.
Further in the store there’s much, much more. You continue past the kitschy pop culture items and get to the meat of things. Tons of snacks and candy. Dried and candied fruit, chocolate of all variations, nuts, trail mixes, I could go on forever! Not to mention tons of candy! A wall of candy really, both new and old. Sporting lots of brands and specific candies from the late 1800s to now. I personally love all of their items, I’ve never had anything I disliked. A lot of stuff is repackaged, but tons of it is from local, small businesses or their in house cooks and bakers.
Past the candies and snacks is the honey room. Walls of various different flavors of honey, the majority of them coming from local farmers. We live in a dessert so there’s some unique flavors to be had. They also have honey sticks! Honey is a fav of mine and I love all the different flavors they offer. Dessert flower, orange, mango and habanero being my favs. I wish I had more use for honey because I would buy them all in bulk.
Aside from the honey though, they have a big ol soda pit. It’s this area in the store that dips down into a separate, closed off room with loads of different sodas. Flavors range from the exotic to the norms you can find in any grocery store. My favorite is Puma Cola and the good ol’ Pop’s blue soda. They also have the 90s classic, surge!
That’s it for the food stuff for the most part. In the next sectioned off area of the store, they have all these little knick knacks. Those old dragon statues everyone wanted as a kid, shinny rocks, incents, old 1950’s tin toys. They also have the most bomb fudge made in store back there. Again, sticking to their theme, the fudge comes in a wide variety of flavors. Maple being my fav. It’s a lot to take in, but there’s a certain charm to it.
Last area inside is a massive collection of ceramics and outdoor items. This area makes you walk out of the main building into a little outdoor area. When things were normal, you can just chill on the benches or enjoy a snack. You hop over to the next building and they have ceramics for all kinds of characters. All hand made and painted. One day I really want to grab one. Sadly I couldn’t get any pictures due to too many people in the area.
Then last but certainly not least, they have an animal and dinosaur zoo outside! Lots of cuties back there to gander at after you buy all your treats. Right now they are all gated off but usually you can walk through the area and check out all the animals they have to see!
All in all, it’s a wonderful place and is always a treat to visit. Once the virus is controlled, I want to go back and spend some time shopping. I’ve seen it all but it’s always a lot of fun just browsing the wacky plethora of items they keep in stock there.
