THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1994, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Sunday, August 7, 1994 TAG: 9408050230
SECTION: CAROLINA COAST PAGE: 07 EDITION: FINAL
TYPE: Cover Story
SOURCE: BY PERRY PARKS, STAFF WRITER
LENGTH: Long : 143 lines
The produce people are hearty folk with the endurance to put in 16-hour days and the commitment to work seven days a week during the bustling summer season. Many still grow much of the food they sell, although some have turned all their attention to their stands. All of them provide an outlet for local farmers to sell.
CURRITUCK THE HOME STRETCH of a trip to the Outer Banks can be exhausting, whether you start from Chicago or Chesapeake, from Pittsburgh or Pasquotank, from Baltimore or Barco.
Traffic often is bumper-to-bumper down Route 168/158. It's hot, it's sticky, it's boring.
Then, like an oasis in a desert, the signs pop up: Pictures of ripe peaches, melons, grinning cucumbers, corn, berries, butterbeans.
And although you're not quite there yet, the drive becomes a bit easier to bear. Edginess turns to eagerness for a taste from the farm-fresh produce stands.
About 20 markets appear in sporadic fashion along the final leg to the Outer Banks, and each stop holds a character and personality all its own. Decor ranges from the hospitable awnings of Grandy Greenhouse and Farm Market to the baby-blue exterior of Tarheel Produce to the pink and purple polka dots of S & N Farm Market.
What's constant is the dazzling array of fruits and vegetables that beckon like sirens, virtually bursting with freshness and dripping with juice that travelers can almost taste as they pass.
The allure is why cars already loaded with lawn chairs, surfboards and crammed coolers invariably pull into the gravel or grass or mud lots for one more pickup stop on the way to the beach.
``When you go on vacation, you have to have fresh things,'' said Elizabeth Winn, standing in the Grandy parking lot on a recent weekday. ``We get on the road and we smell melon. We smell corn.''
Winn is part of a five-couple entourage who rent an Outer Banks house together once a year. She and friend Nancy Heacock of Annapolis, Md., had just watched market co-owner Allie Grandy delicately remove dried bouquets from a ceiling-high wire with a broomstick.
``I just thought they'd be beautiful for a fall wedding,'' said Heacock, who bought 14 of the bouquets for her son's ceremony next month.
Like many market proprietors along the 168/158 strip, Allie Grandy takes pleasure from her interaction with customers.
Frequently she'll look up from her work to greet a regular or tease a newcomer. Even as she stretched to coax down the flower baskets, she joked with a woman who was wearing a T-shirt nearly identical to her own.
``You get to meet a lot of folks, see a lot of nice faces,'' said Grandy, 45. ``A lot of people are repeat customers. They do stop in every week.''
The markets are friendly places, where travelers and locals mingle, exchanging pleasant small talk that warms each store with a down-home feeling. Knowledgeable employees give free advice, quickly identifying the riper of two melons by the color of the seams.
Many market owners grew up with the country-store feeling in Currituck County, within miles of where they now earn their livelihood. Allie and Colon Grandy, who still farms daily, were born and raised in the area and started out selling from a pickup truck.
The produce people are hearty folk with the endurance to put in 16-hour days and the commitment to work seven days a week during the bustling summer season. Many still grow much of the food they sell, although some have turned all their attention to their stands. All of them provide an outlet for local farmers to sell.
And most say they wouldn't consider another career.
``We enjoy the work,'' said Margaret Newbern, who with her husband, Alton, has been running the Hilltop Market for 42 years. ``We have customers that have come in since the first year we were open.''
As if on cue, a car with Florida plates rumbled into the dusty lot minutes later carrying Joseph and Eleanor Stuart, both 86, who had been traveling to the Outer Banks for the last 40 years. Margaret Newbern, herself 73, hefted a melon into a paper bag and personally carried it to the car so she could greet Mrs. Stuart.
``The customers are part of my family,'' Newbern said. ``You know 'em, you know when they come, and if they don't come you wonder what's wrong.
``When they leave, they'll stop by on the way out and say, `I'll see you next year.' ''
What keeps them coming back year after year, customers say, is the quality of the food.
``They're a lot bigger than the ones at the market back up in Norfolk,'' said Richard Strickland, 49, who stopped at a Carolina Produce stand for a pair of bulging cantaloupes. ``Usually when we come down we stop and get a little something somewhere.''
Another roadside regular is Don Rector, who pulled up the shady drive of Rufus Jones Farm Market, where colorful fruits lay spread in tilted wooden troughs and large wheeled carts.
``I always stop here when I leave Nags Head,'' said Rector, who was returning to Colonial Beach, Va., with his family. ``I load up when I come through and take everybody back watermelons and cantaloupes.''
While variety - including crafts and jarred preserves - is the key for most of the roadside stands, some markets prefer to specialize.
``Our only major thing is peaches,'' said Mike Zagray, who sells the fruit from under a pointy-roofed wooden gazebo operated by Soundside Orchard. ``Anything else is incidental.
``When you compare this peach against the grocery store variety'' - Zagray paused for a dramatic chuckle - ``there's a difference.
``You need to wear a bib when you eat 'em,'' he said as Monica Cremia approached seeking two baskets that weren't ``super, super ripe.''
``I've been coming here for, I don't know, six years,'' said Cremia, 38, of Kill Devil Hills, who works in marketing and advertising and comes by nearly every week to stock up for herself and her friends.
Market workers up and down the strip said business has been strong this year, although those closer to the Wright Memorial Bridge said people are reluctant to stop when traffic backs up.
Among those concerned about the traffic situation is County Commissioner Ernie Bowden. He said he worries that continued expansion of the roadway will erode access to many of the markets and discourage motorists from stopping. He has proposed opening a central farm, seafood and crafts market near where 168 and 158 meet to create a stronger draw where traffic can be controlled.
``I would envision a more comprehensive feature than we're seeing today,'' Bowden said, although he acknowledges that the markets add to the route's character.
Other observers, such as Currictuck Agriculture Extension Agent Al Wood, said they think road widening will ease traffic and encourage travelers to stop.
For the time being, the markets seem to be thriving - or at least keeping the owners busy.
``We put a year's worth in six months, I can assure you of that,'' said Walton Morris, whose Morris Farm Market is one of the larger outposts along the Currituck stretch.
Morris and his wife, Ginger, who also started by selling produce from a pickup truck, arise before 4 a.m. to prepare for the day's customers.
``It's certainly not a get-rich deal,'' Morris said. But, ``we love what we're doing.'' ILLUSTRATION: Color photo on cover and inside photos by DREW C. WILSON
Alex Stalls, 4, of Moyock, holds a cantaloupe while shopping at a
stand on U.S. Route 158 in Currituck.
A motorist headed for the Outer Banks carries a watermelon to his
car after shopping at Soundside Orchard's stand in Grandy.
Cameron Sawyer, 18, of Barco pushes a cart of onions to the Morris
Famrs stand in Barco.
KEYWORDS: VEGETABLES PRODUCE STAND by CNB