CityView Magazine

business Various and Sundry T Southern Gin and Grain has sold a little of everything for 55 years BY NATHAN WALLS Even vaccines for dogs, cats, horses and hogs. The small business' product variety and commitment to customer service has sustained the store since 1957. Owner Roy Turner has been at the store for 34 years, taking over the business aſter learning the ropes from the original owner, his father-in-law Mack Gillis, who was a county commissioner. To stay in business so long, Southern Gin and Grain, located on C Street in Fayetteville, has had to stray some from its original focus of primarily catering to farmers. "There used to be a cotton gin here years ago and we used hey don't sell brandy, like an out-of- towner once thought, or malted beverages, and they're not a brewery, but Southern Gin and Grain carries pretty much everything else. to buy soybeans off the rail line before Cargill came in," Turner said. "We've been around here so long, we've rolled with the changes." The store has also grown in size significantly from its first days of being housed under a facility featuring a metal ceiling. "I decided to knock the wall out and added another sec- tion," Turner said. "Another 15 years later, I knocked anoth- er wall down and added the back section you see today. I'm done knocking walls down." Inside those walls, customers will find anything and eve- rything, including fertilizer, seed, lawn and garden chemicals, Husqvarna lawnmowers, chainsaws, blowers, clothes, boots, plumbing supplies, hardware, tools, pond algaecide, old fash- ioned candy, squirrel traps, poultry feeders, rock salt, farming equipment, lime and a whole lot more. Customers can also run their hands through seed and weigh it out instead of pur- chasing a product in prepackaged bag. smile. He looks like a proud papa as he walks around his store "The question is what do we not sell," Turner said with a showing off his products. And he's awfully impressed with the Husqvarna chainsaw and riding lawnmower, which features a 1/4-inch thick deck covering the blade. Turner shows the difference between the 1/4- inch thick deck and the thinner, plastic version you'll find in a big box store. "Husqvarna has a great chainsaw and we sell a lot of those every month," he said. "Lowes and Home Depot can't buy a riding lawnmower like this and put it on the floor." Southern Gin and Grain partners with Hope Mills Saw and Mower to service warranties on Husqvarna equipment. Another service at the business on C Street is a 50-feet long truck scale that serves as a certified weigh station. In the near future, the store is planning a seminar on how to plant wildlife seed so you can hunt deer, turkey and other CityViewNC.com | 35

• Cover