[piano intro] - Next on "North Carolina Weekend", join us as we discover small town gems across the state.

We'll check out an old-fashioned trading company in Lawndale, Vivian Howard's latest in Kinston, and Hickory Nut Gap Farm in Fairview, coming up next.

- [Narrator] Funding for "North Carolina Weekend" is provided in part by Visit NC, dedicated to highlighting our state's natural scenic beauty, unique history, and diverse cultural attractions.

From the Blue Ridge and the Great Smoky Mountains across the Piedmont to 300 miles of barrier island beaches, you're invited to experience all the adventure and charm our state has to offer.

[upbeat music] [upbeat music continues] [upbeat music continues] - Welcome to "North Carolina Weekend", everyone.

I'm Deborah Holt Noel.

And this week, we are exploring small town gems across the state.

At the crossroads of Highways 18 and 27 in Cleveland County sits a country store, boutique, cafe, ice cream parlor, and coffee shop called Redbone Willy's Trading Company.

As producer Teresa Litschke discovered, there's a lot going on in a relatively small space, all cleverly orchestrated by its owner.

[upbeat music] - [Teresa] This is the unincorporated community of Toluca, North Carolina, also known as Lawndale, an area that seems like it's in the middle of nowhere, yet, as far as mileage goes, is close to everywhere.

- I'm going from Court Square to here.

Shelby, 18, Hickory, 20, Morganton, 20, Lincolnton, 16, Charitable, 14, Asheville, 75, and Charlotte, 45.

- [Teresa] As long time resident Glenda Miller found, it was the perfect place to offer everything she loves, packaged in a business called Redbone Willy's Trading Company.

- I knew I needed something that would catch your eye because of the traffic going so fast through here, 55, 60, 65 miles an hour.

It had to have something that would confuse people enough to want to stop.

- [Teresa] So the legend of Redbone Willy is fictitious, but the catchy name seems to have worked.

- It's a unique place, very unique.

I've heard about it over the years.

- It's a great, eclectic, fun, beautiful place.

Stop by.

There's lots of different things to see.

- [Teresa] So much, in fact, trying to label the store is kind of tough.

- I am a high end, I would say vintage, country, western, boho.

I don't even know how to explain it.

- Fun, unusual.

Sometimes it can be overwhelming.

[laughs] - Well, first of all, you're gonna be amazed when you come here, I hope.

Most people, they walk in the door and they go, Wow."

- [laughs] I could spend hours in here, literally.

- [Teresa] That's because you can find just about anything.

- Clothing, accessories, some home decor, shoes, bags, jewelry, sandwiches, ice cream.

This, that, and the other.

[laughs] - [Teresa] Which includes pantry items.

- [Glenda] The country store, I have my jams, my jellies, dressings.

- [Teresa] A coffee shop.

- [Glenda] We have frappes, cappuccinos, espresso.

- [Teresa] And a place for prepared foods called the Bonehead Cafe.

- We have about 40 different sandwiches.

They're all grilled on sourdough.

But I have always been a fan of the Mater Melt.

- We don't use margarine, we use butter.

Everything's better with butter.

- That is sourdough bread, tomatoes, lots of cheese, mayonnaise, Duke's Mayonnaise, garlic, hot sauce, salt and pepper.

And I think bacon now.

I think she's upgraded to add bacon.

- [Glenda] There you go.

- [Teresa] Add to that salads, soups, and more that are, of course... - All homemade.

All homemade.

All homemade, yes.

All my homemade ice cream is made from scratch.

I have about 40, 45 different flavors.

Not all of 'em I make because I can't get past the first 22, 'cause they're everybody's favorites.

- It's amazing.

- And she makes 'em?

- Absolutely.

She spends a lot of time making her ice cream.

- All right, my most popular ice cream flavors are Monkey Madness, which is banana pudding.

So I use all the ingredients that you would put in your homemade banana pudding, goes into that ice cream.

That's number one.

Southern Comfort is like my number two.

I make all my pecan pies from scratch.

I put a vanilla base, I put the whole pie in the ice cream, along with the nuts and my homemade brownies.

- Well, you can tell it's homemade.

There's a difference.

It's smooth.

Can taste the little bites of the pie in it, and pecans.

- [Teresa] But one of the most popular attractions is the true legend here, Glenda herself, if you can ever catch her not working.

- People say, "Well, where's Glenda at today?"

And I'm back here cooking.

And they want me to come out and talk, and I can't because I've got all these orders backed up, so I just want everybody to know that I'm in the kitchen, I'm cooking, I love you, hey, thank you, and come back.

- Redbone Willy's Trading Company is at 6533 Fallston Road in Lawndale, and they're open Wednesday through Sunday from noon to 5:00 PM.

For more information, give them a call at 704-538-3670, or go online to redbonewilly.com.

There's an old mountain expression called thirstier than a salt face mule, so it seemed like the perfect name for a popular brewery in Weaverville.

[gentle music] - I used to play golf with an older gentleman in Yancey County.

His name was Sam Jones.

And Sam had all of these old mountain sayings.

And one of his sayings was being thirstier than a salt face mule.

And a salt face mule is a mule that's been worked really hard, and where it perspires and lathers up, a brown mule or black mule's face will become crusty white in the afternoon, and that's where the name came from.

Yeah, our goal here was to have some Southern cuisine, and with that, use some of the old mountain sayings to name some of the beers.

And we even have a website where people can suggest names, and we've had several that have been suggested.

We have a Holler Atcha, which is a West Coast IPA.

Sit A Spell, which is a tropical IPA.

We have Bless It, which is our hazy.

So we have several, several of our beers that are named after old mountain sayings.

- So when we thought about opening the Salt Face Mule, it was an old go-kart facility.

It was a Putt-Putt of America.

And what we really wanted to do was build a place for all generations.

And I think we built that.

You know, you have people out here playing putt-putt from two years old to 72.

Everyone's having fun.

It's very family friendly.

We have 36 holes of putt-putt, two 18 hole courses.

We have two full-size bocce courts.

It's just all around a good experience.

- I would describe the food here as Southern inspired.

So, we take Southern dishes and we put our own little spin on it.

We are from scratch, so we do everything in house.

We do a shrimp and grits.

We make jalapeno cheese.

We make our andouille in house.

We make the green sauce in house too.

We also have a creole crusted trout.

It's served over a creole creamed corn that we also do in house.

It's a really good dish.

We work really closely together.

All of the things that Ray, our brewer, rolls out, directly correlate to what we put on our menus, and the types of collaborations that we do with the beer that he specialty brews and the things that we create in the kitchen, it's something I've never experienced before, but it's a really awesome thing.

We try to work together as much as we can on those projects.

- I think the most exciting thing about the brewery is creative control and the ability to make everyone happy, who enjoys beer.

So I don't make a lot of complicated beers.

I don't make a lot of beers that are overwrought.

I try to make very simple, drinkable beers that you can come in and have a few of.

Beer and bars and breweries in general impact the community in a positive way, 'cause it's a community gathering place.

But you can come here and have a couple nice beers and enjoy yourself outside.

That's one of my favorite things, to hear people talking about our beers, you know, just getting excited about it.

I get to basically make everybody happy, and it's pretty fun.

- Salt Face Mule's my "Cheers".

This is a Sidecar.

So it's cognac and Grand Marnier and lemon juice.

And he shakes it up just right and makes that little fuzzy foam on it.

That's my drink.

And when I walk in the door, by the time I get to the bar, it's sitting here.

- I think this place actually epitomizes what Weaverville and, you know, our people are all about.

You know, we're about fun, friendliness, forgiving, good food, great beer, those types of things.

It's a place where you can come safely and you can hang out, and it's wonderful to have it here in the Weaverville area.

- When Helene hit here, we were lucky enough to had thought it through and rented two refrigerated trailers.

We put lights in the kitchen, started the generators, and cooked food for the whole community.

We served, I think, 4 or 500 people out the front door.

We did multiple different events for people that were impacted with Helene, different businesses, different foundations, and I think it really showed the strength of the community.

- We just recently did a fundraiser with Mountain Strong 828, which is a nonprofit from Hurricane Helene, and they raised $35,000 in one day, which was absolutely phenomenal.

Community means everything to me.

I mean, I chose to be a servant, and I have been a servant my entire life.

And you know, being able to make a difference, we try to build everything that we do around being here for the community and the people that support us.

- Salt Face Mule Brewing Company is at 450 Weaverville Highway in Asheville, and they're open daily.

For more information, give them a call at 828-484-7474, or go online to saltfacemule.com.

Once upon a time, our producer, Seraphim Smith, used to work at Chef Vivian Howard's esteemed restaurant, the Chef and the Farmer in Kinston.

That restaurant has seen a lot of changes since then, so we thought we'd check back in with Seraphim to learn about Vivian's latest venture, The Counter.

[gentle music] - The Chef and the Farmer in Kinston was the set of an award-winning show on PBS called "A Chef's Life".

And a lot has happened here in the last five years.

Let's sit down with storyteller and chef Vivian Howard to hear about her restaurant's re-imagining and rebirth.

[gentle music] It looks a little bit different over here.

Can you tell me about some of the changes that you've made here at the Chef?

- Yeah, I mean, pretty much everything.

where we are now, this is called The Counter at Chef and the Farmer, and it used to be what we called The Wine Shop.

- [Seraphim] Or The Aquarium.

- Yeah, or the aquarium, yes.

But it was always my favorite part of the building.

It has, like, really, the only natural light.

The wall across from us is this beautiful kind of work of art that is a remnant of previous life in this building.

And then over at the Kitchen Bar, you know, I do these dinners.

I mean, it's kind of the opposite of this.

It's very high touch.

It's seven courses.

I cook all of them and entertain and chat and sign books.

And so, you know, I guess we don't have anything in the middle.

But yeah, this menu is meant to kind of, like, straddle the world of Chef and the Farmer and the world of The Boiler Room a little bit.

- Yeah, I see that.

- [laughs] Yeah, but so we have, you know, one of my favorite things from The Boiler Room was the blueberry barbecue chicken sandwich.

We have a burger, we have a number of big, nice salads over here, and then our seasonal sides are, you know, where I see Chef and the Farmer make its way in a lot.

We have the fried collards that people were crazy for.

This menu, in building it, I really thought mostly about my parents.

- Oh.

- And the fact that at this stage in their life, they end up eating out a lot more than they ever did.

And there aren't a lot of healthful options for them, and so I wanted to have a lot of vegetables on the menu.

I also, I wanted to point out that, you know, this is kind of a little family affair here, because my sister, Lorraine, makes all the cakes.

- Does she?

- Yeah.

And, you know, she was always the cook in my family, and so it was a big surprise that I became, like, the chef.

But she has always loved baking, and she makes the best cakes and cookies, and so, yeah, I've never worked with my sister before, but it's been fun, 'cause I'm in charge.

- Yeah.

[both laughing] How are you engaging the community of Kinston?

- Well, honestly, I reopened this for Kinston.

So many people told me that it left a hole in the community, and they missed my food and our place, and so that's why we're here.

My goal in reopening this was to have it work for everyone who works here, including me.

You know, I think everything has a season, and everything worth doing is worth changing.

And in order for me to work and engage in this, it needed to reflect where I was at at this moment, because I am the person, the thing that will forever be attached to this place.

So, in a way that almost no other restaurant in the world is, because we, you know, filmed a TV show here.

- The Counter at the Chef and Farmer is at 120 West Gordon Street in Kinston, and they're open Thursday through Sunday for lunch and dinner.

To find out more, give them a call at 252-208-2433, or go online to vivianhoward.com.

Nashville, Tennessee is famous for its hot chicken joints.

Well, as producer Clay Johnson discovered, you don't have to leave the state to enjoy hot chicken, beer, and live music, just head to Greenville.

♪ You know I ain't the jealous type ♪ [upbeat music] ♪ It's time you know you got it right ♪ ♪ 'Cause baby, if you love me ♪ ♪ Won't you do something for me ♪ - My name is Ryan Griffin.

I'm owner operator at Nash Hot Chicken at Nash Recording Studios.

Nash Hot Chicken was born from a trip to Nashville.

I really fell in love with the atmosphere and the vibes.

I've always been a fan of music, always been a lover of music, and you go down Broadway in Nashville any time of day or night, any day of the week, there's a ton of music all over the place.

- [Clay] Ryan Griffin blended his love of music and his food service experience into this chicken restaurant in Downtown Greenville.

- Our slogan is, good music, cold beer, good vibes, making sure that there's a safe and fun place for any and all people to come through and get a great bite to eat and catch some good tunes and see some friends and meet some new people and just create a crossroads down here, is kind of what we were after.

- [Clay] The menu is chicken-centric.

- It's Nashville style hot chicken.

Hot chicken has a distinct taste, it's a regional classic, and we just brought it to Eastern North Carolina.

Pan breaded, brined overnight, and then we think of all different kind of ways we could package that.

We go everything from a classic cheese steak to our version of a quesadilla, all the way up to the Nash, which is our signature sandwich on two Texas toasts, buttered up with a rooster sauce, and that's the classic right there.

But we do different variations of that throughout the menu, and some unique ways of kind of packaging Nashville style hot chicken that maybe you wouldn't think about.

- I mean, it is the most delicious thing you'll ever have.

As far as fried chicken goes, they do a good number on fried chicken.

- [Clay] There's cold draft beer and signature handcrafted cocktails.

- I just tried one of their new drinks, which was the pumpkin spice martini, and it was amazing.

And we loved the food, we loved the drinks, we loved the atmosphere, so, everything about it we enjoy.

They have great outdoor seating where you can just chit chat with people and eat some good food.

- It's really good food.

[laughs] We always just have a great time.

It's a really nice atmosphere coming in here.

It's also, it's a lot more relaxed than some places around here, which I love.

- [Clay] It may be a chicken restaurant, but music is on the menu too.

Tonight, the duo of Jordan and Paige are playing with their band.

The two got their start here at an open mic night, and then got their first paying gig here.

- I feel like they do a great job at getting a lot of musicians in and outta here, and, like, keeping it fresh.

- We play here, but we also go see people we know play here, so it's nice to, like, enjoy and play at, too.

- We've had jazz bands come here, like, kind of rock tribute bands.

I mean, any type of music you're interested in usually is here.

- [Clay] Even Griffin and Nash Hot Chicken co-owner Kurt Hauser are musicians in a band called Morgan Hudson and Company.

They opened the restaurant in May, 2022, and when an adjacent building became available two years later, they bought it and turned it into a recording studio called Nash Studios.

- Opportunity's knocking, and we both heard the knock, we both grabbed the door handle, ripped the door open, and jumped head first into something we had never done, and never looked back.

- [Clay] A wide range of musicians record here, including Morgan Hudson and Company, of course.

- [Ryan] It's kind of taken on a life of its own since we've opened, which is cool.

- [Clay] The restaurant stage next door can be a first step to coming in here to record.

- We like to market ourselves where anybody, any time, can come in and jam, and that's kind of how we set it up.

If you play for 30 minutes, you get a free meal on us.

We're not the only good restaurant in this town, we're not the only good experience in this town, but we are a unique one.

You know, just come hang out.

That's the whole point of this, is come enjoy the vibes.

We need some good vibes in the world now, and if we can be a little oasis in your life to come and just forget about some things, you know, that's what we try to do.

- Nash Hot Chicken is at 114 East 5th Street in Greenville, and they're open for lunch, dinner, and late night every day.

For more information, give them a call at 252-999-5444, or go online to eatatnash.com.

No matter where you live, big city or small town, there's nothing like a visit to a farm to lift your spirits.

Add in a farm store and some fresh meats and produce, and you've had quite a day at Hickory Nut Gap Farm.

[gentle music] - I'm Jamie Ager, and we are at Hickory Nut Gap Farm.

My great grandparents moved here in 1916, so the family's been here for, you know, over 100 years.

And then we sold that in about the '90s, and then my wife Amy and I came back to the farm, and I always say we were young and idealistic about saving the family farm and making it work for us.

We are now in our late 40s, and we're still idealistic about saving family farms and making agriculture work for people.

We raise grass-fed beef, so we have beef cattle, we have pigs, pasture-raised pigs, and then we do some pasture-raised chickens as well, and every Thanksgiving, we sell a lot of pasture-raised turkeys.

And so when you come to Hickory Nut Gap, we have our farm store, which is open five days a week, so you can buy local meats that are all pasture-raised, no antibiotics, no hormones, regeneratively raised products that we really celebrate with our community, and invite people to come touch and feel agriculture, learn about agriculture.

We really want to encourage people to learn about what we represent at Hickory Nut Gap.

- It's a fun place to come out and just have, you know, have a picnic, have a nice walk.

Kids and family can enjoy coming out, seeing our animals doing great, having the best life possible, and we carry local groceries, and a lot of people come out to support us, the community, and Western North Carolina.

- I found that, like, my favorite time to come is in the fall, because they have so many events going on.

I think today is the Big Barn Market, which has a bunch of vendors, so my daughter and I have just been walking through and shopping.

It makes it feel really nice to buy locally and support the Fairview community especially.

- I like how it's really family friendly.

There's a lot of things that you can do here, like ride horses and go on hay rides and check out the Farm Store.

I think it's really fun.

[gentle music] - So the aftermath of Helene was really just a month of triage just to kind of get things back where they needed them.

- [Yukio] There were big rivers everywhere, 'cause we have small creeks running around, so I couldn't get down here by walking or car.

- [Jamie] Ashworth Creek swelled so big, essentially took out all the fence lines and the corral systems and roads on the farm, and so all of our water lines were essentially knocked out as well.

- [Yukio] Our first priority was to save the animals and making sure all the animals are doing great.

- And we did lose one batch of chickens.

We do rotational grazing with our chickens, and one of the batches was in the line of fire for that flooding, and so those birds didn't make it, but the rest of the farm was okay.

- [Worker] Come on, Chowder!

- We did have one pig who was in the corral, and we got her out in the middle of the flood, and luckily, a walker who runs the farm day to day got a good video.

Chowder's pretty famous now.

We have T-shirts about Chowder and stuff like that.

We still are rebuilding the bridge across the creek.

We're fixing all of our roads finally.

The farm's starting to feel like it's back to normal.

But it's been a year, and I think there's still some work ahead for sure.

- I'm from the area, and so every place that we value as a community that was able to be saved or rebuilt means a lot to us.

It's collective identity of individual families and legacy properties like this one.

It's really happy to see when members of the community, especially upstanding members of the community, are able to make it and have a farm that supports so many other local farmers.

- So we really see Hickory Nut Gap as an opportunity to reintroduce our, you know, rethink our food system around a company with deep values around the land, the animals, and the people, and to me, that's a beautiful opportunity to reconnect with consumers, earn trust, and ultimately be in relationship with one another, because I feel like at the end of the day, humans thrive best when we have good, healthy relationships with each other.

And that's really our hope and desire here at the farm.

- Hickory Nut Gap Farm is at 57 Sugar Hollow Road in Fairview, and they're open Wednesday through Sunday from 10:00 AM to 6:00 PM.

For more information, give them a call at 828-628-1027, or go online to hickorynutgap.com.

Well, that's it for tonight's show.

We've had a great time showing you some small town gems.

And remember, if you've missed anything in tonight's show, you can always watch it again online at pbsnc.org, and you can find all of our stories on our YouTube channel.

Have a great "North Carolina Weekend", everyone.

Goodnight.

[upbeat music] [upbeat music continues] [upbeat music continues] [upbeat music continues] [upbeat music continues] [upbeat music continues] [upbeat music continues] [upbeat music continues] - [Narrator] Funding for "North Carolina Weekend" is provided in part by Visit NC, dedicated to highlighting our state's natural scenic beauty, unique history, and diverse cultural attractions.

From the Blue Ridge and the Great Smoky Mountains across the Piedmont to 300 miles of barrier island beaches, you're invited to experience all the adventure and charm our state has to offer.

[gentle music]