The “New” Variety Store

 Many people who have not been to the island ask us, before they come, whether they need to bring all their groceries with them.  The answer is: no.  We have, maybe a quarter mile from our house, the Ocracoke Variety Store.  Tommy Hutcherson and his crew work very hard to keep us stocked with an always growing inventory of grocery and hardware items.

During Hurricane Dorian the Variety Store was flooded.  But, through working day and night, they were back up and running in less than a week.  The hard thing was getting delivery trucks to come over to the island at that time.  Then one day an entire tractor trailer truck loaded with goods arrived.  It had come out of the stock of Conner’s Grocery on Hatteras Island.  They had generously come to our rescue and even sent staff to help get things stocked.  We are community.

This past winter a wholesale remodeling and enlargement of the store was undertaken.  It was fascinating to go in each day and see the overnight progress while at the same time they were open to customers.  Now the reworking is almost finished and we have a totally new store with greatly increased capacities especially in areas such as frozen foods, meats, and produce.

While there is much more stock variety, things seem to still fly off the shelves during tourist season and stocking goes on constantly.

The hardware side is also totally reconfigured. Yes, we have a real old time hardware store where you can buy one screw at a time along with tools to borrow for your own plumbing fixes.  We could not get along without it.

If you need it, the Variety Store almost always has it.  Thanks to Tommy!