During their first visit to Mount Olive, Wilmington residents Reed Slatas, left, and Doran Rozen sample Mt. Olive Pickle Co. products in the company’s new downtown Pickle Parlor. Their verdict? ‘Delicious!’ and ‘Crisp and fresh!’ (Kathy Grant Westbrook|mountolivetribune.com)
A miniature version of Mt. Olive Pickle Co. mascot Ollie Q. Cumber has caught the eye of Joann Frances, during the Maryland resident’s first visit to the Pickle Parlor. (Kathy Grant Westbrook|mountolivetribune.com)
Pickle Parlor manager Sonya Jackson, left, and store clerk Tammy Mayo serve samples of Mt. Olive Pickle Co. products at the pickle-tasting bar. ’ (Kathy Grant Westbrook|mountolivetribune.com)
A wide variety of Mt. Olive Pickle Co. products are for sale in the company’s spacious Pickle Parlor. (Kathy Grant Westbrook|mountolivetribune.com)
Part store/part museum, the Pickle Parlor has a small room dedicated to telling the history of Mt. Olive Pickle Co. (Kathy Grant Westbrook|mountolivetribune.com)
Mt. Olive Pickle Co.’s new downtown Pickle Parlor has 3,000 square feet of retail space, compared to just 600 square feet at its previous gift shop. (Kathy Grant Westbrook|mountolivetribune.com)
Since moving to North Carolina two years ago, Reed Slatas and Doran Rozen have made a number of trips from their home in Wilmington to attend events in Raleigh. During each drive, they’ve tossed around the idea of hopping off I-40 for a side jaunt into Mount Olive, and on a recent Friday afternoon, they finally did just that — which explains how they found themselves in the Mt. Olive Pickle Co. Pickle Parlor surrounded by, you guessed it, all things pickle: t-shirts, puzzles, greeting cards, ornaments, tote bags, toy trucks, aprons, oven mitts, and much more — including, of course, jars and jars and jars of pickle products.
For decades, the pickle company operated a tiny 600-square-foot gift shop at its headquarters, at the corner of Cucumber and Vine, but a month ago, the shop moved downtown to 109 N. Center Street, greatly expanding its footprint (to 3,000 square feet) and its selection of merchandise.
“Response to the Pickle Parlor has just been phenomenal,” according to Lynn Williams, public relations manager for Mt. Olive Pickle Co. “Local feedback has been so positive and supportive. Many are optimistic, like we are, that the store will be a great magnet that will bring more people to downtown.
“For me personally, I enjoy seeing the people walk into the store for the first time,” she continued. “Their reactions are priceless — many just stand there for a moment to take it all in. It’s so gratifying.”
Williams noted that during the Pickle Parlor’s first four weeks downtown, over 1,800 people visited the store — an increase in shoppers of 40 percent compared to the same timeframe, at the original location, last year.
Employees of the Pickle Parlor — manager Sonya Jackson and clerks Tammy Mayo and Kelli Holland all moved from the old gift shop to the new — have noticed the dramatic increase in business. “It’s night and day,” Jackson said.
When shoppers Slatas and Rozen entered the store, Slatas announced, “We’ve never had a Mt. Olive pickle, and we love pickles.” And just like that, Jackson and Mayo ushered the couple over to the popular pickle-sampling bar, where taste-testing is offered daily. Each day, two different Mt. Olive Pickle products are available to taste, and on this particular day, the offerings were the kosher dill munchies and the Majestic Premium bread and butter pickled carrots. Plus, Jackson and Mayo retrieved a few other open jars from previous taste tests to allow the couple to sample even more.
Between bites, Slatas and Rozen were generous with their praise, enthusing, “Delicious!” and “Crisp and fresh!”
“Ooh, that’s good,” Rozen said, upon tasting a Majestic Premium medium heat hot sauce savory kosher baby dill.
Both she and Slatas were big fans of the bread and butter pickled carrots, as well.
In addition to purchasing several different jars of pickle products, they also went home with a package of pickleballs and a mug.
“This is so much fun,” Slatas said, as they gathered up their goodies to go.
“We’ll recommend this to our friends,” Rozen added.
Store manager Jackson said that some of the most popular items with shoppers are the caps, t-shirts, tumblers, and pet toys.
“And pickles,” she added. “That’s number one.”
The back wall of the Pickle Parlor is lined with shelves filled with a wide variety of Mt. Olive Pickle products for sale. It was this area that caught the attention of Joann Frances, who was making her first-ever visit to Mount Olive with her husband Robert.
The couple, from Maryland, make regular trips to Myrtle Beach, South Carolina, to visit their daughter who is attending college there.
“Every year when we’ve passed, as we come down the road, we see Mount Olive,” Joann Frances said. “So we just decided today we would check it out.”
She and her husband are big fans of Mt. Olive Pickle products — “I use them all the time,” she noted — and what she was most excited about was discovering some new products that she’s never seen at her local grocery store.
She also couldn’t resist taking home a little stuffed version of Ollie Q. Cumber, Mt. Olive Pickle Co.’s mascot. “This is just adorable,” she said. Holding on to Ollie, she continued a slow perusal of the many pickle products displayed before her, while her husband was entertained nearby, watching a Mt. Olive Pickle Co. video explaining the company’s history, production processes, etc. The video is shown in a small room that also boasts a timeline of the company’s history. Throughout the store, old photos are displayed along a border next to the ceiling. So, the Pickle Parlor is much more than a store, it’s also a museum of sorts.
Visitors are coming from near and far, according to Jackson and Mayo. Indeed, entries in a sign-in book from the prior day showed visitors from as close by as Seven Springs and Goldsboro and as far away as the Philippines.
According to Jackson, some of the store’s international visitors are the families of students attending the University of Mount Olive. And, while the university helps bring visitors downtown, the opposite may also prove true: the two shoppers from Wilmington, Slatas and Rozen, talked of possible plans to explore the university campus after leaving the Pickle Parlor. Based on their positive experience in Mount Olive, it’s a safe bet this won’t be the couple’s last time in town.
The Pickle Parlor is open Monday through Friday, 8 a.m. – 5 p.m.
