[guitar music] - We're a small town that lives big.

- Every night of the week you can find live music somewhere, at a restaurant or at one of the local bars.

- [Man] We're seeing a renaissance of food and culture and beverage as well.

- We love the Hickory area, when we moved here 10 years ago we decided this was gonna be home for us.

- The funny part is that I hear people say, "There's nothing to do in Hickory."

And I'm going like, what rock do you live under?

- I think there's more than enough to make you feel like you're in a great place.

[upbeat country music] - Hickory grew because for a long time it was the main stop on the railroad for Catawba County.

So, at the time it was a rural community, all the farmers would bring in their produce, their product to the railroad, from there that grew into, you can see very naturally, textile industry, cotton, and from there the furniture because of the local woods.

- The local business men would watch the lumber that originated from this area be sent to the factories up north to make furniture and they were wondering why are we sending all of our furniture up to factories up north when we could be producing it here and supporting our local economy.

We've got a lot of manufacturers in this area still, a lot of people think that it has left but it has not.

- When you bring together people that have different backgrounds, expertise and knowledge sets that allow them to cohabitate, amazing things can happen.

- The idea rises to get the potters together so that buyers could see lots of pottery and have a choice of what to buy.

- We had thought at first we would just concentrate on the Catawba Valley but it became obvious that the interest we were getting that we really needed to cover all of North Carolina.

- The artwork in here is amazing, from the moment you walk in.

- [Barry] It just has always amazed me that we have such a fine cultural base here.

[soft music] - We have people of all ages that come here, they are often, they stagger a little, when you try to take in all the different wallpapers.

This is the parlor of the 1887 Harper House, it was built by a gentleman named Daniel Webster Schuller, successful business man that came down from Michigan.

People just want to know more about that era of Hickory, when Hickory was growing.

[soft guitar music] - I rode by it, instantly fell in love with the house, then I had to persuade my husband to open up a bed and breakfast.

- She brings me over to the house to show it to me and we pull in the driveway and I say, no, heck no.

Cause the house had been abandon for 17 years, overgrown and just looked kinda spooky and we got the chance to come into the house and got a little history of the house and we just instantly fell in love with it, we knew it was for us.

- [Patricia] The house was actually completed in 1920 by gentleman by the name of Ray Miller Hunsucker, he built this house for his wife and his family, when the stock market crash of 1929 happened he lost quite a bit of his fortune.

- We were driving through downtown one day and she saw a sign in a window that said, Sweet Tea and she looks over and she goes, "What do you think about Sweet Tea?"

- [Patricia] The furniture in the upstairs rooms was actually from local estate sales and yard sales.

We wanted to keep this whole home as authentic as possible to Catawba County.

- We had pancakes, we had waffles, we had a breakfast casserole which had sausage, peppers, onions, tomatoes, cheese in it, I made some pastries.

[upbeat music] We are the first and only bed and breakfast in Conover.

[upbeat country music] - I think the food scene in Hickory's really picked up and blossomed.

- Especially as a young historian, being able to into the old textile mills and furniture mills to have a beer.

- Hollar Mill was a mess, Hollar Mill was in peril and the whole area was in peril.

It was a hosiery mill in the 1930s and '40s, something we're famous for, textiles, it needed some love.

[upbeat country music] We're a farm to table restaurant, we really believe in working with local growers.

And while it sounded trendy in other places, for us it was real cause we have a huge farming community in Catawba County.

So we work with over 100 growers and 100 farmers and we brought them in, we use their goods, we support the farmers market.

So one of the things we think we have is one of the best burgers in town, it's a double patty burger that's got house made pimento cheese, we have caramelized onions, it's made on a house made bun, our own dill pickles on it and it's this big with a big ol' knife right slab right in the middle of it and house made truffle fries and it's, I think it's excellent.

There are now 14 independent restaurants that are members of the Hickory Independent Restaurant Association.

And independents really are what will make this economy grow.

- We do traditional styles of beer, using traditional methods and the idea is to have a balance, to have a balance, not just within the beers but also to have a balance with our folio.

What we also do a lot of are a lot of barrel aged beers, most of them are bourbon barrels.

Because the beer picks up the nuances of the spirit that was in the barrel.

- When the Olde Hickory Tap Room first started in 1998, they decided to initiate a mug club, we assign everyone a number, we hang them on the wall in order, when they come in we get their mug down, we put it on ice and make it an iced mug beer.

The owner said they thought they might sell 200 and now we're over 1100 mugs and counting.

- We make North Carolinas first bourbon ever made in the state, the first ever to do it.

[country music] We start out with a grain that's grown less than seven miles from the front door.

We mash it in house, there's something about using your hands to make a spirit that's pretty cool and we get to do that with bourbon.

We love going to Hatch, Hatch is a great local business by a guy the same name as me.

- We opened a small little place six years ago not know what it would do since it was kinda a different concept for the area.

We specialize in sandwiches, pulled pork plate, things like that, local sides and every Friday night we have hot drinks.

- With my girlfriends we like to go to Boca, have the tapas, little wine.

- We focus on tapas right now because we love to share, it's really going back to comfort food.

Something that you share with a group of people, you just sit down and you just have a glass of wine or a glass of sherry and you just dig in.

Most of our customers are from Asheville and Charlotte, from Savannah, from all over.

This is kind of a really melting pot in between big cities.

- What's great about Hickory Furniture Market is that we have four levels of nothing but furniture.

[upbeat banjo music] It truly is an experience and it's a destination.

People will come here because they can find everything under one roof, they can find their furniture, they can find accessories, we have designing service and most of the people that work here in the building have grown up in furniture.

Whatever level of quality, whatever price point we can really work towards that.

[soft music] - Rock Barn was started in 1969, so we are the first in the area, we have massage services, we have estheticians, we have nail services, we have the salt water pool, we have mineral waterfall, we have the outdoor jacuzzi, the cooling pool, we have saunas, we have steam room, I mean, it's just an unbelievable spot here.

People are starting to recognize the spa and also Rock Barn and Hickory and Conover area.

- The arts scene in Hickory is really happening.

One of the biggest, bold face lies that we all need to squash is that there's nothing to do in Hickory, that is just absolutely ridiculous.

[orchestra playing] So the Western Piedmont Symphony was founded in 1964 as the Hickory Symphony.

We do about 85 performances a year.

- Oh, Salt Block is one of the coolest cultural places around.

[upbeat country music] It actually stands for science, art, literature together.

There's so many things to do, it's hard to choose.

- I think a good forward thinking art museum is thinking about needs in the community and build bridges together that can move the needle forward in terms of progress.

[upbeat country music] - Hickory's on your way to everywhere, you wanna go to high country, go through Hickory, you wanna go to Asheville, go through Hickory, you wanna go to Winston and Raleigh, go through Hickory, we're on your way, Charlotte, 321, we're on your way to everywhere.

Stop here, we have a lot to offer.

[upbeat country music] - To plan your weekend in Hickory, go to hickorymetro.com or give the convention and visitors bureau a call at 828-322-1335.