Stocking Up On Tradition: Inside Mast General Store

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Now in its second century, employee-owned Mast General Store continues to provide patrons with an old-timey shopping experience.

In the spring of 1980, John and Faye Cooper took the biggest risk of their lives. 

Intent on leaving the rat race, the couple quit their jobs in Florida, packed up their two kids and drove 600 miles to a blink-and-you’ll-miss-it town called Valle Crucis. Here, nestled in North Carolina’s High Country, the Coopers committed themselves to reviving a 19th-century provisions shop known as Mast General Store. 

But their 11-year-old daughter, Lisa, wasn’t having any of it. A cantankerous pre-teen, Lisa couldn’t understand why her parents would leave behind a good life for a derelict building. (To add insult to injury, the family would be living in a makeshift apartment above the retail shop.) 

Alas, it took Lisa some time to accept the change. 

“I cried myself to sleep several nights,” she remembers. “I kept thinking, ‘What have they done?’ It was all a little frightening.”

However, as the shop yawned, stretched and came back to life, its charm grew on Lisa. She started cherishing the cloyingly sweet taste of Dr. Pepper (in a glass bottle, of course), the heavy sigh of the century-old floorboards and how Watauga County locals gravitated to the store. Put simply, Lisa fell in love. 

“My parents created this fun atmosphere that we shared with others,” says Lisa. “It was always exciting to wait on the customers and show them our new products.”

In the years since, Lisa has graduated from the cash register to the C-suite and now serves as president of Mast General Store. The business has grown up too, with locations across Virginia, Tennessee and the Carolinas. 

In each of these storefronts, you will find decidedly modern products like Swiss-engineered trail running shoes and high-performance headlamps alongside timeworn goods like beeswax salves, cast iron skillets and apple butter. But more importantly, you will find a certain feeling—a sentiment that can only be described as an aching nostalgia for years gone by. 

Turning Back the Clock

Mast General Store began with a clock salesman named Henry Taylor. 

In the mid-1800s, Taylor arrived in Watauga County with a blind horse and a wagon full of Seth Thomas timepieces. Intent on making a living, he promptly established a general store along the Caldwell Watauga Turnpike in Valle Crucis. When this venture proved successful, he opened a larger brick-and-mortar across the street in 1883. He called it Taylor General Store.

Not long after, the clock salesman joined forces with W.W. Mast, a 20-something-year-old entrepreneur with a sharp eye for business. Tenacious and determined, Mast bought into Taylor’s enterprise in 1897. Sixteen years later, he assumed full ownership and gave the shop its current name. 

In the half-century to follow, Mast General Store would emerge as a fixture of the Valle Crucis community. As Lisa notes, the store prided itself on selling anything a mountain family might need, from chamber pots to wool. Mast even peddled cradles and coffins, hence his tagline, “If you can’t buy it here, you don’t need it.”

But most patrons weren’t so much buying as bartering. 

“Back then, it was more about trading than purchasing items with cash,” Lisa says, noting that live chickens might be exchanged for a sack of flour or a gallon of milk. 

Meanwhile, feverish locals would travel miles to see Dr. Henry Perry, who had a ramshackle exam room out back. Heart-eyed mountain folk would also meander to the store’s post office, intent on sending quixotic letters to far-flung beaus. 

Needless to say, Mast General Store was more like a kindhearted neighbor than a provisions shop. And so, when the store changed hands and closed its doors in 1977, locals mourned. The Coopers did too.

Reinstating History

John and Faye fell in love with Mast General Store during a winter ski trip. The couple presumably stopped to get gas or maybe to grab a soda. No matter the reason, they were instantly smitten with the rambling clapboard building. 

But when John and Faye returned years later, they were disappointed to find the place boarded up and abandoned. 

“That got my dad’s wheels turning,” says Lisa. 

Seeing promise in its creaky hardwood floors and drafty windows, the Coopers purchased the store in 1979 and moved to Valle Crucis the following spring.

The first few years were tough, says Lisa. Since the shop opened at 7 a.m. and closed at 8 p.m., the Coopers put in long, grueling hours. Faye often bounced between the cash register and the now-defunct deli, ringing up spools of ribbon and goat milk soap only to turn around and make a cheese sandwich.

Since the deli was the only restaurant around, it boomed. An old menu on the store’s website lists laidback delicacies like the peanut butter deluxe: a mess of whole wheat bread, peanut butter and honey for less than $3. Paired with a 30-cent cup of coffee, the hearty meal was a crowd-pleaser. 

The post office, which John and Faye fought tooth and nail to reinstate, was equally popular, notes Olivia King. 

Though King now manages the Roanoke, Virginia, location, she started her Mast General Store career 15 years ago at the flagship shop. She says that when the Coopers reclaimed the post office, it “gave an identity back to the area” and made the shop a “true hub.”

Lisa agrees. “The post office brought in the locals,” she recalls. “And that’s exactly what my parents wanted to do: serve the locals.”

Coming to a Town Near You

The Coopers’ desire to serve the locals is why, in September of 1982, they opened the Mast Store Annex. 

At the time, construction crews were replacing the bridge in front of Valle Crucis Elementary School. Alas, Mast General Store patrons were forced to roll up their trousers and ford the creek or take a circuitous detour. Hoping to save folks the trouble, the Coopers expanded to an old building less than a quarter mile down the road. 

Fittingly dubbed the Mast Store Annex, the shop was wildly successful. So much so that when a space became available on West King Street in downtown Boone six years later, John and Faye jumped. 

Referred to as the Old Boone Mercantile, this outpost attracted even more shoppers thanks to nearby Appalachian State University. 

“We gained amazing new exposure,” says Lisa. “The store became an institution.”

Soon enough, news of Mast General Store spread beyond the High Country and grabbed the attention of a man named Don Eudy. 

Eudy lived in Waynesville, North Carolina, a pleasant hamlet located about 30 miles southwest of Asheville. Despite its enduring charm, Waynesville needed help. Since the

1970s, retailers had been leaving Main Street in droves. But when the town’s department store—a place called The Toggery—closed its doors in 1981, Eudy decided he couldn’t sit on his hands any longer. After making a few phone calls, he had convinced the Coopers to come have a look-see. 

“I remember visiting downtown and thinking, ‘This could work here,’” Lisa says. “The people of Waynesville just had so much passion to bring to the store.”

In 1991, Mast General Store debuted in Haywood County—a watershed decision that would set the tone for future expansion. 

“That’s when we really began investing in development,” says Lisa. 

Awakening Main Street America 

In the coming years, the Coopers would open new shops in cities and towns like Hendersonville, North Carolina, (1995), Asheville, North Carolina, (1999), Greenville, South Carolina, (2003), Knoxville, Tennessee, (2006), Columbia, South Carolina (2011), Winston-Salem, North Carolina, (2015), and Roanoke, Virginia, (2020).

All but Columbia and Winston-Salem are mountain locations.

“More often than not, downtown associations contact us and say, ‘We have a location. We need a Mast General Store,’” Lisa explains. “We’re truly honored by the sheer amount of phone calls.”

By now, Mast General Store has a reputation for awakening sleepy downtowns. When the Coopers expanded to Waynesville, for instance, more than 50 percent of the storefronts in the downtown district sat vacant. Now, the vacancy rate is closer to five percent. 

Ben Wilder with the Haywood County Tourism Development Authority credits Mast General Store for Waynesville’s revival. 

“Tourists love the squeaky hardwood floors and the cool, outdoorsy vibe,” he says. “People come downtown specifically to shop at Mast.”

Afterward, patrons may stop at Birchwood Hall Southern Kitchen for toothsome duck wings, grab a hoppy porter at Boojum Brewery or nosh on bonbons from Dillsboro Chocolate Factory. Point being, Mast General Store stokes the flames for dozens of small businesses. And this phenomenon isn’t unique to Haywood County. 

According to King, the new Roanoke shop is already working its magic. 

“When we first moved to downtown in 2020, there was an empty space across the street from us,” she says. “Now, that’s a restaurant and wine-tasting room.”

King rattles off other ventures that have recently cropped up: a home goods shop, a custom furniture store, a smattering of eateries and even some short-term rentals. 

“We have seen a lot of growth in our immediate area,” she says.

Put simply, “Mast General Store is a huge economic driver,” says Jamie Carpenter, downtown manager for the City of Hendersonville. 

As Carpenter notes, the store’s eclectic mix of seemingly everything—from Amish rocking chairs to water purification devices to comfy nightgowns—attracts tourists and locals alike. 

“I believe having a Mast General Store on our Main Street sets a standard of quality for downtown retail,” says Carpenter. Plus, she adds matter-of-factly, the store is the perfect place for kids and families to “get their candy fix.”

Passing Ownership Along

Of course, there are many reasons to love Mast General Store besides its seemingly endless supply of Charleston Chews and countless other candy classics. Joey Fuseler, general manager of the Waynesville location, knows this firsthand.

Fuseler started working for the retailer about nine years ago. At the time, he was studying to be a physical therapist. In need of a part-time job, he took a weekend gig at the Mast General Store in his hometown of Columbia, South Carolina.

“Honestly, I wasn’t interested in doing retail for a career—ever,” Fuseler admits. But almost instantly, he was smitten with the company’s ethos of “kindness and positivity.” Unlike the big-box stores he had worked for in the past, Mast General Store prioritized the employee experience. 

“This place is different,” says Fuseler, who soon left behind physical therapy for a full-time job at Mast General Store. In 2018, he assumed his current position at the Waynesville location. “The company culture here is amazing,” he swoons.

And that’s not by accident. Since opening the flagship location in 1980, the Coopers have tried their best to create a positive workplace environment. In the early days, for instance, Lisa remembers her mom cooking the Valle Crucis employees a hearty lunch: a bowl of soup, a fresh sandwich, perhaps a cup of strong coffee. 

Looking to give workers far more than a hot lunch, Mast General Store officially became an employee-owned company in 1995. There are now approximately 250 employee owners. The business also offers a range of other benefits not typically offered in the retail industry, from health insurance to bereavement pay to paid volunteer time.

“My parents wanted to help employees understand that we can all make a difference in the value of the company,” says Lisa. “By working together, we can thrive.”

Savoring the Experience

Today, Mast General Store is certainly thriving. 

Since the 1980s, the Coopers have transformed a shuttered provisions shop in the High Country of North Carolina into an Appalachian icon. Now, Mast General Store visitors come from all nooks and crannies of the world to buy licorice by the pound, marvel at droll toys and gear up for backcountry hiking trips. 

But more than the eclectic products, folks come for the experience: the sweet drone of a bluegrass-tinted Americana music mix,  the buttery bouquet of fresh popcorn and the neighborly chit-chat amid heaps of long johns and biscuit cutters. 

As travel writer Charles Kuralt wrote in his 1986 column in the Chicago Tribune: “This store, with its creaking, hundred-year-old pine floorboards and its cluttered aisles and its garrulous patrons, in no hurry to get on with whatever it is they should be doing this morning, is figuratively, and more or less geographically, the heart and soul of the South.”

This store is also the heart and soul of the Cooper family.

“It took me some time to understand what my parents were trying to accomplish,” Lisa admits, reflecting on those early days as a cantankerous pre-teen. “But,” she says, “the business spirit grew on me. I fell in love.” 

The story above first appeared in our January / February 2023 issue. For more like it subscribe today or log in with your active BRC+ Membership. Thank you for your support!