Lucky Strike Plant

Fifty-Fifty
Salisbury, NC
Photo courtesy Tony Craig

The Fifty-Fifty store is owned by Tom Tucker in Salisbury, NC. It's called the 50/50 because the shelving units are on a center swivel and can turn around to reveal different items. Many thanks to Tony Craig for info. 06-06

The faded Coca-Cola advertisement at the Fifty-Fifty Store gives this Salisbury corner a familiar neighborhood look. The little brick grocery recalls the days when picking up bread, a cold drink, or something for supper meant walking down the street. The store operated from 1928 until 1981. Its painted sign has outlasted the business, leaving a bit of advertising behind for passing motorists to enjoy. 06-06

UPDATE: The former grocery building survives, with its weathered Coca-Cola advertising recalling more than fifty years of neighborhood trade. The shop is gone, but the corner still carries traces of its working days. 11-26

McIlhenny Company Tabasco Sauce Factory
Avery Island, LA
Photo courtesy Richard Weiss

Here's a shot of the Tabasco plant on Avery Island, LA. At first, this appeared to be an old industrial place and made the trek here only to find that the tours were closed that day and the building dates only to the 1970's. Many thanks to Richard Weiss for info. 02-07

A little bottle of hot sauce has brought plenty of travelers to the McIlhenny Company Tabasco Sauce Factory on Avery Island. The Louisiana setting may seem quiet, but this is where one of America's most recognizable condiments gets made. The factory buildings are newer than the business, whose story reaches back to Edmund McIlhenny's first commercial sauce in 1868. 02-07

Avery Island is actually a salt dome, and salt remains one of the original sauce's three ingredients, alongside peppers and vinegar. Pepper mash ages in oak barrels before blending and bottling, a slow process behind a product usually added just a few drops at a time.

UPDATE: Tabasco continues production on Avery Island. The visitor experience includes a museum, barrel warehouse, bottling exhibits, country store, and restaurant, giving this working factory plenty to explore beyond its familiar label. 11-26

Conrad & Hinkle Food Market
Lexington, NC
Photo courtesy Richard Weiss

The old Conrad & Hinkle Food Market storefront looks right at home on Lexington's Main Street. Its familiar sign advertising fresh meats and produce promises the sort of shopping experience that once filled downtowns across the country. Here, the grocery counter and neighborhood business have managed to hold their ground through generations of changing shopping habits. 12-07

Founded in 1919, the family business became known for its butcher counter, local produce, and homemade pimento cheese. That last specialty developed a following well beyond Lexington, using a family recipe associated with the store since the 1940s. Inside, the older fixtures and pressed-tin ceiling add to the market's character.

UPDATE: Conrad & Hinkle remains in business, continuing more than a century of downtown grocery service. Its familiar storefront and house-made specialties keep this Lexington landmark part of everyday life. 11-26

Foust Photo
Asheboro, NC
Photo courtesy Richard Weiss

The retro lettering at Foust Photo makes this Asheboro storefront worth a second look. It recalls the days when downtown photography businesses handled family portraits, wedding pictures, and rolls of film that couldn't be checked on a screen. Behind the sign is a business whose photographs recorded decades of community life. 12-07

Clyde Foust Sr. founded the business in 1964. In 1968, he and his wife Betty became the first African American entrepreneurs to lease a downtown Asheboro commercial building. Their photography operation grew into a familiar local institution, preserving everything from graduations and dance recitals to family gatherings.

UPDATE: Foust's family has been sorting the photographs and recordings left in the former business, working to reunite them with the people pictured. The collection is giving local families another chance to recover memories captured decades ago. 11-26

Main Street Soda Shop (Gone)
Hamlet, NC
Photo courtesy Richard Weiss

The Main Street Cafe & Soda Shop had a name that suited its surroundings. Set among Hamlet's older downtown storefronts, it looked like a natural place to pause for lunch or something cold before continuing down the road. A little soda shop doesn't need an enormous sign to fit into a town's roadside story. 01-08

Hamlet developed around the railroad, and its downtown buildings reflect the years when passengers and railway workers helped keep local businesses busy. The soda shop belonged to that familiar small-town tradition of cafes and lunch counters serving the people who lived, worked, and traveled nearby.

UPDATE: The Main Street Cafe & Soda Shop has closed. The surviving storefront recalls a business that added another everyday stop to Hamlet's historic downtown, even after the town's busiest railroad years had passed. 11-26

Castle Video Games (Demolished)
Blacksburg, SC
Photo courtesy Richard Weiss

The cheesy fake castle you see here is at the Blacksburg exit. Apparently it once sold fireworks. Nearby were a lot of other larger fireworks places but not quite as tacky as this one. Many thanks to Richard Weiss for info. 01-08

The castle opened during the late 1990s, just before the state's video-poker era ended in 2000. Its working life was brief, but the empty building remained beside the highway for more than twenty years. Long after the games disappeared, the fanciful exterior kept motorists wondering what had once gone on inside.

UPDATE: The castle was demolished in 2024, and a QuikTrip now occupies the site. The turrets and roadside characters are gone, ending one of the interstate's more unusual architectural diversions. 11-26