Poor Farmer’s Market Old Fashion Country Store, and a staple of the Meadows of Dan community, is putting the finishing touches on an event that has been years in the making – a celebration of its 40th year in business.
“As of March 1st, 2024, Poor Farmers Market has been open 365 consecutive days a year for forty years. That is 14,600 consecutive days having never closed in 40 years except when the power was out,” Feleica Shelor, owner, wrote in a series of excerpts on social media detailing the journey to the upcoming milestone celebration.
The event is set for Sunday, March 3, from 2-4 p.m. at the store, with live music, a Trivia Game and prizes at 3 p.m., a pinata for youngsters, drawings for gift cards, and other goodies, leading up to the grand prize – a weekend get-away at Poor Farmer’s Cabins.
Shelor started her business selling produce on the side of the road at Lovers Leap with her grandmother.
“All my life, I’ve sold produce to tourists, so it was an easy transition from doing that to coming here,” she said of the brick-and-mortar space she began renting in 1984 from Larry Hutchens, of L.E Hutchens Inc.
“I rented this building from him, and he rented it to me in order for me to sell gas for him,” she said. Now, 40 years after striking her agreement with Larry Hutchens, “Hutchens Petroleum is still providing us with gas.”
She recalled the building “was built by A.D. Hopkins Oil Company in Stuart as a Gulf Service station in 1962. Between the years of 1962 and 1984, over 30 operators tried their hand at running the business as a full-service gas station and auto mechanic shop. The new business would be a country store, produce market, a wholesale produce business, and gas station,” Shelor wrote.
The first customer paid $5 for gas on March 1, 1984, Shelor said, and recalled that her “hands trembled” when she put the five-dollar bill in the cash register because she understood “the magnitude of the moment. This business would be her life, all her life, for better and for worse,” she wrote.
“Poor Farmers Market did not take off right away. It takes years to overcome the loss of goodwill when a business has never been a success in a particular location. But the fall tourist season was always extremely busy, and the produce market made enough profit in the fall for the business to survive the winters, but just barely enough,” Shelor wrote.
Shelor bought the building in 1986, after selling her house to pay for the downpayment. Shelor and then her 4-year-old daughter, Casey, moved into a tiny house behind the store in January 1986.
When she first started out, Shelor said her daughter, Casey Davis, was a baby. Casey literally grew up in the store. Felecia was 21 and Casey was 2 years-old when Poor Farmers Market became their whole life. There was no money and no time to do anything but work.
Shelor recalled that she “worked 12 hours a day, seven days a week, and Casey was there every day, until she was mature enough to stay” in their little house out back by herself. Shelor would slip out to check on her daughter in between customers.
Davis also recalls growing up in the store.
“Mom would have to open, and she was the only one, and she’d run this place 14 hours a day. She overslept one time, and the locals were coming knocking on the door telling us to get up and come open the deli,” she said, laughing.
“If I overslept the locals are knocking on my bedroom window out back, ‘get up we’re hungry,’” Shelor said.
Over the four decades she’s been in business, Shelor said Poor Farmer’s Market has gained numerous regular customers.
“The vast majority of our customers are repeat regulars, even regular tourists who come here. Most of our customers have been coming here many years, and many of them have been coming here for 40 years,” she said.
After ‘big box’ stores such as Walmart and Lowe’s emerged, “I had to change the business to survive because I couldn’t compete with them on those things,” Shelor said, adding that is when Poor Farmer’s Market shifted into a more country store type business instead of a general goods store.
When she first started running the business, Shelor said she knew nothing about running her own business.
“I grew up in this business. I didn’t know anything when I started. I was 21 when I started, and I’ve learned everything about running a business since I’ve started. I had to learn everything about it,” she said.
After overcoming financial struggles in the latter 1980s, Shelor put her store and home up for collateral and borrowed $50,000 in 1993 to pay for an expansion.
“Poor Farmers Market tripled in size with the addition to the back of the store in 1993. The kitchen and deli, retail space, an office, and a big storage area were added to the back of the old Gulf Station,” she wrote. “The whole building was sided with roughcut pine. Poor Farmers Market took a new turn in 1993, with a much bigger food service operation, an increased focus on gifts and unique products, and an expansion of country foods and locally made products for locals and tourists.”
Owing to the success of Poor Farmer’s Market, Shelor was able to purchase and open the nearby Concord Corner Store about eight years ago.
“I tried to help sell it for many years and couldn’t get a buyer and if that big, old, brick building had” continued dilapidating, “it would have been very devastating for the whole community,” she said. “As time went on, I knew what we could put in there that would work. It’s a little more upper scale than here.”
Nowadays, it’s harder to find produce to sell because many of the farmers that supplied the store have died, Shelor said.
“There’s not a lot of orchardists coming up and there’s not any farmers coming up, so our suppliers are drying up. It’s really hard for us to keep it going because of the lack of suppliers on every level,” she said.
Shelor is actively seeking farmers and those who have home gardens to buy produce, as she continues her goal of ensuring the business is viable.
“The struggle now is more than it’s ever been in 40 years,” she said.
In addition, Shelor said the lack of store help and government regulations also are impacting her business and others.
“We’ve moved into a corporate economy. There are not enough suppliers that will come to a place like Meadows of Dan. Another problem is government regulations that don’t fit the size of our business. We’re in trouble because of government regulations,” she said.
Her determination, as well as her family that also now includes Casey’s husband, Tim Davis and their children, Rain and Banner, as well as long-time employees like Trinity Goad, keep Shelor focused on her goal.
Goad, she said, started working at the store when he was 15. Thirty years later, he’s still a valued employee.
“When he came to work here, we didn’t know we were going to spend all of our lives together in the store working together,” Shelor said, laughing.
Despite any current or future challenges, Shelor is intent on her goals of providing for the community, her employees and her family.
“We’re trying to keep the community going so that people like my grandchildren can live here in Patrick County and have an opportunity to make money,” Shelor said. “We’re trying to hold it for them.”
For more, visit https://www.facebook.com/poorfarmersmarket.
