15 - Uwharrie Mercantile (Troy, NC)

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Hello everyone, welcome back to the Biscuits and Gravy podcast. I'm Michelle and Happy New Year. It is now a brand new year and I love a fresh start. I don't know about you, but I love Mondays. I love that New Year's Day happened on a Monday. That was just like my dream come true. So I know that sounds really strange to a lot of people probably, but I am excited for a new year, a fresh start. I have been busy.

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just looking through our plans for the year and what I want to see happen, where I think the Lord is taking our family and me personally, and things that I need to be focusing on. And I just, I love just kind of sitting down and pondering and really being intentional about my life, just what I'm doing and how I'm using my time and money and that kind of thing. So.

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I am glad that you are with me here on this little fun space that I have created here at Biscuits and Gravy. This is something I do want to continue this year. I'm excited to continue it, and I've already been making plans with traveling and going to different places for the sole reason of being able to share those places with you guys here. So thank you for being here. Today is...

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really special day. I wanted this to be the first episode of a new year because this is a place that is near and dear to my heart. this is somewhere that I have patronized for a while now pretty much since they opened. I don't even know when they opened. let's see eight years ago maybe ten years ago. it's been it's been a little while. so this episode is about

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the URI Mercantile in Troy, North Carolina. And this is just down the road from us, just about 10 minutes from our home. And it is located in the historic Hotel Troy. And it's a beautiful building. And I'm just gonna share just a little bit, I'm gonna read to you a little bit about the story of the building and who owns it now. And then I'm actually gonna just

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it's going to be basically like an interview because I did interview the owner Dana Dawson and she gave me some answers to some questions I had about the mercantile and I think you'll find all of that very interesting. So on their website which is just you are a mercantile.com and you are is an interesting name guys so I understand that we know it very well because we are here in the URI mountains and I grew up here and so

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I don't think twice about saying the name URI, but a lot of people don't know how to spell it, don't know what it is. So it's U-W-H-A-R-R-I-E. And I will list all of the links and things in the show notes, so you don't have to worry about writing those down if you're driving or whatnot. Just check out the show notes when we get done. But...

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So nestled among the URI mountains in Montgomery County, you will find the lovely town of Troy, North Carolina, a town rich in industrial history that also serves as the county seat. As you meander your way through historic downtown Troy, you will find yourself amid shops and restaurants in a very distinctive three-story building known as the Hotel Troy. Today it is home to the URI Mercantile.

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A very special gathering place among locals and visitors alike. Dana and Ray Dawson are the owners of Troy's exciting new establishment and they have big plans to turn this once empty building into a bustling center of activity. Their vision is to restore the entire building and catalyze a place to gather, a place to celebrate, a place to create, a place to love. And I think that really sums up their

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their vision and really how they've executed it well. I fell in love with this business the first time I went there, all those years ago when they started it. And like I said, forgive me, I do not know what year it was. She might have put that in her interview that I'll read in a minute.

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But I fell in love with just the history of it. You guys know, if you've listened to my Charleston episode, you know that I love history. I love visiting historical places, places that have some meat to them, that have some depth to them. They've seen some things. And I just love being able to stand in those places and just kind of imagine what things were like and just how much that building has seen.

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you definitely get that feeling when you head to the mercantile. Probably my very very favorite part about the mercantile is when you walk in the door you feel welcomed. And you guys know I am a sucker for hospitality. I'm a sucker for environment and being welcome. And so that is what you receive every time you walk into the mercantile. If Dana herself is not is not welcoming you, her staff

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behind the counter is welcoming you to the mercantile. They're telling you, they're telling you goodbye when you leave and have a nice day and to come back. And Dana is one of those people that I guess she would probably consider herself extroverted. I consider her extroverted. She's very friendly. She knows people's names. She remembers their stories. She talks to them. She gets to know them. She's very involved in the community.

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And so I'm just, I'm a huge fan of this business. I love going in there for coffee. I love going in there. They serve lunch now. We'll talk about that in a minute. I love Dana's style of decor. She has really filled the place with antique furniture and it just looks really authentic, really comfortable, but authentic too.

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the history of the building. So I love the way that she's done that. So let me get into the questions here that I asked her and we'll go from there. So I know a lot of local people will probably be listening to this and thank you. Thank you for being here and listening to this. And so I think you especially will find this interesting because I haven't read any kind of article or anything where

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Dana or Ray have gotten interviewed about their business and asking them questions. And so I thought this was really interesting. I was excited to get these responses from her. So I asked her, what's the most challenging part of running your business? She said, my small business is like running three businesses in one. One is the coffee shop. Two is the cafe or the food service. Three is the specialty gift shop. Each require a different business model to ensure financial viability.

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What do you want people to know about your business? Our true purpose is to be a gathering place for the community. Everything else we do has been done to afford us that ability. What's your favorite dish or drink? This is a hard one because I love so many things. Drink is the URI Sunrise. That's why it's at the top of the menu. So you'll see that when you go in. And actually that is my favorite drink as well. I get that with oat milk now. And...

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because I've cut down on my dairy a little bit, but it's so good. And she says holiday time, a peppermint white mocha is her favorite. And then for food, she loves the honey berry turkey sandwich, which I think is so funny because that's my favorite as well on the menu. And that's a fairly new menu item. What are you most proud of about your business? Three things she says. One, we saved an old building that was quickly dying.

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Two, we created a unique place that all feel welcomed and valued, children, adults, locals, travelers, et cetera. Three, created jobs for young people that has allowed them to develop important skill sets.

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Share some of the history story of your business. We created the business to save the building." And she put a smiley face. Okay, so she gave the date here. February 17th, 2017, we toured the building purely out of interest with no intent to purchase it and definitely no plan to open a business. But by the time we ended the tour and saw the condition the building was in, we knew someone needed to do something, so why not us? We then decided to buy the building.

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I knew the first thing I wanted to do was to restore the old drug store and bring back so many of the features that made it so special. A coffee shop just made sense in that space. Everything else we added because the community asked for it. Food, marketplace, etc. And then I just said to tell me anything else you'd like for us to know, future plans, events, or whatnot. She said 2024 will potentially bring about some changes, but I'm not sure what that looks like yet.

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I believe it's important to evolve on a continual basis. Add new things, end some things and so on. And I agree, Dana. So Dana, thank you for answering my questions and for allowing us to feature Your A Mercantile on the podcast. It really is such a special place. My kids and I actually on Wednesday of this week, and we do this very often, almost weekly.

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will go and spend a morning at the Mercantile to do schoolwork. And it's a great place just to hang out with people. I have hosted, or not hosted, but I have been a part of Bible studies that have met at the Mercantile. We hosted a fundraiser for a local pregnancy resource center at the Mercantile. Dana is very quick to help.

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in any way she can with the community, anything that is needed. She is very quick to do that. She not only offers space for, like she was talking about her marketplace for creators to sell their products, but she actively is involved in community projects like the fundraiser I was talking about.

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helping and giving back to the community. And like you heard her say, like her heart was just for this to be a place to serve the community, to save a building from dying and to help the community and provide a place for people to meet and to gather and to enjoy together. And she has executed that perfectly, I believe. I know she knows better than I do some things that maybe.

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she wanted to change or that she feels like she could have done better. Every business owner does, but I feel like she has just really, really done a great job of creating that kind of an environment for our community. And we didn't have anything like this before the mercantile. So I am so thankful that she took a chance. I know it was probably a very, very intimidating task.

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to say the least because like I said, and like she said, it's a very old building. And I know she has big plans for the rest of the building as well. So time will tell what that looks like, but I'm excited. I'm excited about the mercantile. When people travel through, they stop at the mercantile. They've heard about it before. So I implore you that if you are...

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local to us and you have not gone to the URI Mercantile for a drink or to meet a friend or to study or what it is that you have to do but there's wi-fi there you know that you will stop by the Mercantile and just see what I'm talking about. You'll feel special when you're there. You'll feel like you belong. You'll feel comfortable.

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and it's just a really neat place. I love how alive it is. There's always people there. I've been in there a few times. I mean I have frequent in the coffee shop a lot y'all. I mean a lot a lot. So I've been in there in times where maybe the weather wasn't so good and I was working on a project or something and so I was taking you know a couple of hours there at the coffee shop and it was kind of quiet which is which is

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nice. I mean, you know, that's amazing. But more times than not, you will hear lots of conversations going on. You will hear people laughing and joking and crying together and praying together. And it's just it truly has become what she wanted it to be, I believe. So, so that's my

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That's my ask for our community, just to support a business like this, someone who has a heart for the community. We really need to support her back. And then also just if you aren't local to us and you're listening to this podcast, I would ask you to put You Are A Mercantile on your list of to-dos, list of places to visit. It's a great place to drop by. A lot of people traveling through, a lot of people going to...

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To the URI mountains tomorrow mountain to to go hiking in URI they they like to stop through there and And visit the mercantile just to see what all is going on there that is all for this episode and Like I said, thank you, Dana for answering my questions and for letting us feature you on this very first episode We are big fans of the URI mercantile and I know anyone who tries it

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becomes a big fan as well. So we will talk to you guys on the next episode. Thanks for joining us, bye.