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Poor Farmer’s Market is Just Off the Parkway
Felecia Shelor figures the best way to stay in business is to stay open—every day.
For 35 years, Shelor has served the Meadows of Dan community along U.S. Highway 58 in Patrick County, Virginia, at Poor Farmer’s Market—within sight of the Blue Ridge Parkway near Milepost 177.
This old-fashioned country store opened on March 1, 1984, at 8 a.m., and has never closed—day after day, even holidays and with three feet of snowdrifts outside. In fact, the only days you could not see the lights on have been when the power was out. Yet, even then, Shelor says, “I was here. Somebody was here.”
In the summer, this sprawling store opens as early as 5 a.m. and closes at 10 p.m., with shelves of molasses and honey, books and magazines, flour and dried beans. “We carry all the dried beans we can get our hands on,” Shelor says.
Shelor offers locally stirred apple butter, peach butter and pumpkin butter plus local cherries, cabbage, potatoes, peaches and apples. “Our biggest part of our business is our open-air produce market,” she says.
The long-running market actually grew from Shelor’s roadside produce stand, started in 1983, when she was 20. “I was this little country bumpkin, and I was probably like a novelty to people,” she says with a smile. “I was full of life and fire, and I was going to make some kind of business.”
Shelor rented the site of what is now Poor Farmer’s Market, eventually buying the building. She expanded in 1993 to include a deli.
Early on, an artist came up with a caricature of the young businesswoman, when she had simply asked him to paint a “Poor Farmer’s Market” sign. “That’s his rendition of me when I was 20. It’s a little Elly May-looking girl,” Shelor says with a laugh. “I used to wear bibbed overalls all the time.”
Shelor smiles. “All these years I’ve kept it,” she says. “People laugh about it, and people say, ‘Is that you?’ And I’m like, ‘Yeah, 35 years ago.’”
276-952-2670. poorfarmersmarket.biz
The story above appears in our July/August 2019 issue. For more subscribe today or log in to the digital edition with your active digital subscription. Thank you for your support!
