BEHIND The Scenes of a Mennonite Country Store: Come Along With Us for a REAL Treat.

hey guys this is John Ward with the Appalachian Channel and I'm in Ewing Virginia today at the Dutch Treat Country Store it's Ran by A family of Mennonites and they are in here cooking up some bread and cooking up some sandwiches and just making some delicious stuff let's go in and check it out I'm here at the Dutch Street Country Store it is run by Leon gaver and he is a minute and this is what I call a men in our country store and they sell a lot of Amish products and they buy a few different people and they make a lot of their products right here and we're going to check out their kitchen and see what they're doing you want to introduce us and show us the few things going on sure so this is our daily over here where we make a lot of sandwiches we slice meat cheese of course we've also got soups we've got ice cream in the freezer we've got Sharon working today right here and Candace hi and Jan [Music] so it looks like you're making sandwiches already for people for customers for lunch or the orders called in or so some of them might be some of them you know people will come in oh these are these okay so we got an order for a bunch of sandwiches this morning they're making those up quite a few for 11 15 today so we get started early so you might you make the bread that you put for the sandwiches yes all the bread's made right here um if you'll come over here she's uh she's not mixing bread now but it's something else uh German chocolate cakes German chocolate oh deep red that was made this morning that's bread for either for the Shelf out there and then it'll go back here in the deli cornbread meditating her with cheese bread you'll mix the bread there in the in the mixture where she's at now weigh it out put it into the low fans here and then it'll go into what she goes on the rack to rise and above his bait she'll come in early and make get all the bread made up by usually well by this time of the day nine o'clock in the morning she's done with the bread and just working on other things and she'll also go home by lunchtime or so [Music] so uh you originally got this from your grandfather and we're gonna go talk to him in a few minutes and then met him this morning and uh how did that work out that he ended up with the store you said though so my wife's uncle started it as a small sandwich shop it was just really small at the time just the sandwiches they slice a little bit of meat and cheese uh you know about sold it by the pounds and they had a little Bakery there they sold some bread and rolls and stuff and then it wasn't really the kind of thing he grew up in construction and that's what he enjoyed and that's what he want to go back to so he ended up going back to was wanting to get out of the of the sandwich shop so my grandpa was interested and he ended up buying it from my wife's uncle and then that was so it started in 2006 my Grandpa bought it in 2009 then I joined my grandpa and worked for him in 2016 2019 when I bought it uh bought my grandpa out now he works for me so how many people usually working on a day here he's got quite a few looks like so there's nine here today yeah we'll have anywhere from seven six to nine probably [Music] okay [Music] how many loads of bread did you say you guys how many loaves are you making in a day or in a week I don't know um it just depends they use 40 probably 40 in the daily in a day you don't think um yeah probably and then you do 40 on the Shelf 42 on the Shelf this morning those have all been fresh there was some left over from yesterday yeah so plus orders and stuff we're probably doing what [Music] I guess I figure I made around 100 loads this morning so you must come in pretty early then to do that yeah I came in at um this morning it was three o'clock I think three o'clock in the morning my goodness good for you [Music] so is she is she the main Baker or yeah she does all the bread she does kind of things she's been here for 20 years comes in here for three o'clock in the morning um I've been here since 2013. okay pretty close she's been here a longer night so you started working for his cousin originally yeah no I actually worked I started working for his grandma when his grandpa had it yeah yeah okay [Music] all right so I noticed these last time when I came in here I didn't order anything I've always thought this was an ad deal if I ever ran a restaurant that would work really good so where did this one this idea I don't know I don't know if this was here they were doing this before I came uh yeah I really I'm not sure probably just from some of the other stores around that are kind of like on us that we're doing these sandwiches so they come in and it's got your price and they they just Mark what they want and they just turned this in put their name on it and turn it in yeah and then it's a something I think that I saw on one of the other Mennonite stores is another location on their Facebook page they had this basically the same thing very similar yeah yeah so you don't know if that's a something that the men and I it probably was I don't but yeah I'm not really sure uh that was Staples around long before I was in this business so I'm not really sure exactly what happened where that came from um but yeah you'll see them very similar hit slightly different floor mats but the same idea in a lot of these stores so what's the most favorite item for people in this area where do you sell the most uh occasion turkey Cajun turkey paper Jack cheese pepper jack cheese those are most popular so the uh the sandwiches you said you could come in and pick any of this yeah we had we had some we have a lot of them listed on our papers the most common ones but any of these we can put them on a sandwich you can either Meats any of the seeds Okay so you try to you try to buy from as many Mennonite companies as you possibly can but I'm sure there's some items you can't get exactly a lot of my you know uh just common restaurants uh supplies that I need I get those through uh Performance Food Group EFG just out of Johnson City so I see you mainly have a lot of candies is that why it's called the Dutch Treat originally or there's a lot of candy here what's your best seller do you package out let's go over and look at somebody sure so yeah there's actually a few of these candies that we make ourselves uh here on the front so the fudge uh peanut butter roll and the the Buckeyes peanut brittle and Cashew Crunch we make those ourselves right here um most of this other stuff will come from Dutch Valley or Walnut Creek one of the two and we get them in and uh say 20 30 pound cases and then we'll package it out into these smaller smaller containers it's just an economical way to where we can buy it at a better price we can package it out and try to get it to our customers at a better price as well is this some of the stuff that you've packaged here maybe yes yes this would have been this would have been packaged you know will come in on one of the trucks it'll be package it package all this out ourselves here so yeah this is a fat man's Delight yeah I reckon so you've got uh this looks a little on the healthier side down this aisle Maybe on the uh I see a few yeah we've got some very unique items of course we've got the you know all the honey roasted peanuts the common things that you can find nuts um but then something like this dried okra okra chips it's something you can't find just anywhere I mean I sell a lot of that um mixed vegetables beet chips plantain chips let me back up just a second when you talk about this how how are they fixing this or processing it this uh you said okra chips yeah so this these are I'm not sure exactly how they're processed it it's actually a product of uh I believe it's uh Vietnam I think is where that comes from and I think it's where they make it so are they ready to eat right now like this yes I've never seen anything like that just eat out of the bag so yeah that's really that caught my attention to being really unique right right yeah and that's you know that's something that that I can uh that I look for Unique Products like that that I can sell and something that people can't find just anywhere and a lot of these are kind of the same kind of category uh they kind of they come from like I said I think it's Vietnam somewhere over there uh in the uh a lot of these these vegetable chips come from there and there's a unique product that you can't find hardly anywhere else so when we see these labels this is labels you all printed here by the pound you print out the weight or whatever it is and and package them so yeah that's right so this is some different uh I see it says Amish Country microwave popcorn um yeah that's just a brand that I can buy from one of those Distributors and I'd you know it comes with the label and everything on it I just pop it on the Shelf Unique Products again it's uh like this one's a ladyfinger it's a very small popcorn you can pair it with say this one and you can see the difference in the size of those kernels it just makes when they pop it makes a very fine uh tender popcorn and they're a holeless so it's not completely homeless but they're a lot fewer holes in your popcorn than a lot of popcorn you get very high quality so the maple syrup comes straight from New York it's a Mennonite own company up there people that I met and they tap the trees themselves they cook it into the syrup and bottle it themselves and bring it down so it's a an item that I'm really happy to have high quality uh maple syrup that you can't can't find a lot of places in South so the ever Shelf has just got something unique that you just don't see in your normal Walmart store or something like that yeah the granola here's another one that's made in Ohio by uh either mennonitis or Amish I know the per the man that owns the the business a very good seller and uh just a high quality granola is really good for breakfast I had some this morning [Music] uh butter that comes it's a Wisconsin uh hand rolled butter I don't know I don't know exactly on the process of How It's Made it's uh but it's a very high quality butter people drive I have people drive an hour hour and a half just for butter oh really yeah yeah people love that butter I know you said you had some people from LaFollette my hometown which is about an hour and 30 minutes away come up and buy from yeah so yeah they come yeah I hope people yeah from a long ways off they come for the butter uh bacon is another one that people really come a long ways for the buttermilk is kind of a a good quality buttermilk that people like I see that's a Walnut Creek there so they make quite a bit of different products don't they now is this something y'all make here I'll say it's packaged looks like it might have been yes pimento cheese we make the fennel cheese ourselves chicken salad we make here uh the coleslaw and the peanut butter spread the rest of those riders that we're getting involved in package ourselves [Music] these hams my great uncle started to Yoder's country cured hams years and years ago I don't even know exactly when as long as I can remember but he gets those made with his recipe and uh well he's passed away his son's on the on the business now but uh something that I'm really happy to have here that you can't can't find just anywhere these are also items that come we just buy those in from Ohio um Frozen fruits those are really good [Music] the meat's right here my brother raises the uh the beef the Hogs and the lamb and get some slaughtered USDA and a USDA facility and then I'm able to sell them here I've got sausage ground lamb leg of lamb hamburger lots of steaks and stuff really good Quality Meats so we got some signs up here it says the Dutch tree egg sausage ham bacon Frozen Foods we've got a little bit of a gift shop over here too don't we yeah yeah I try to keep some some things especially this time of year we're getting close to Christmas I like to have some uh have some gift items here they sell pretty well this time of year so we've got baking supplies over here on some flour and sugar we've got spices over on the other shelf so um yeah we can kind of got you covered if you're wanting to make something good and I think earlier they were packaging stuff you know it's here to show us the where they package everything yet [Applause] Packaging some raw sugar here right now it comes in at a 50 pound bag and we package it out into these uh these uh bags here and uh then we'll lay the bag onto this scale it'll print out a label right here and it's ready for the shell well that's pretty easy now as far as planting the label with these anyway that part is so that's your job printing the label huh no I let her do that I just take the money to bank you just take the money to the bank there's a lot more than that so it comes you just have to scoop it out so each one would be just a little bit different so you just weigh it and it just goes each each package would be a different price just about wouldn't it it's a random weight random weight item so all that stuff that we saw out there package was at one time come through here on this yeah that would have all that comes through here so is the bread waiting to be uh uh labeled is that what it is that's a wholesale order uh that restaurant ordered and uh so yeah they'll come pick that up this evening okay so you sell some to restaurants yeah we do probably I don't know anywhere from three to five hundred lobes a week wholesale probably so we're in the back stock room here with extra stock and uh behind the scenes here where people mostly don't see so you got some unusual drinks back here let's talk about them a minute yeah so uh these are once again something that you can't find just anywhere um I believe these are made in New Jersey if I'm not mistaken yeah New Jersey uh it's a company that just recently started up and it's got I don't know probably 20 different flavors of lemonades and teas um so yeah they're I usually tell people if you want uh if you want the best peach tea there is just get Joe if if they've got the flavor it's probably the best uh the best tea or lemonade of that flavor that you can buy so so does a company like that find you and the salesman bringing the problem how do you find it I buy that through uh Dutch Valley Foods one of those things we talked about earlier yeah yeah so they must be a pretty big distributor a little bit of everything oh yeah yeah they've got they've got lots and lots of stuff yeah so this is just stuff that's already on the Shelf just extra stock made up that didn't fit maybe just waiting to be moved out when there's you know when it's when there's uh enough sales out that we've got room to put it so we got a whole cart up what's this here that's actually another order for a coffee shop um that goes that'll go out today too that's an older uh wholesale bread order for a coffee shop oh wow that's quite a bit of bread yeah yeah they they buy um you know it's not gonna come for them to get to 40 40 loaves so where would this be going what town come to the Gap Creek Coffee House Down in Calvin Gap Tennessee so anybody that eats it I've ate there before and ate their sandwiches so that's what it's made I didn't know that yeah I talked about Joe drinks they also have chips and they're really good chip they've got a big bags big five ounce bags and little two ounce bags so we're finding out you're not just a retail store but you're you're wholesaling stuff out too like your dad does yeah like what that does on the canned stuff and uh yeah we didn't know about that foreign so we've been talking about uh Leon's dad's business the relish bar and I'm kind of fascinated with it I don't know why but I enjoy seeing canned products even though if I don't eat it I like seeing it so there's some of the items I don't particularly want but I just think it's beautiful the way it's done so you grew up doing this after your dad as a kid you said you started in North Carolina yeah and if it wasn't working this business growing up as a kid doing this what'd you do is a day okay so we get a uh the main product was the chow chow Southern chow chow and that would be something we would shred up the Cabbage onions Peppers the day before and salt it down and it was said overnight in that salt brine we get up one of us will get up early in the morning we go up and get it started put it into the big kettles and add all the ingredients and get cooking we go back down and we'd eat breakfast um it'd take an hour hour and a half for it to cook and then we go up and we get started we had to cook two kettles and we switched back and forth um you know all day long and we'd make four to four to six sometimes eight batches in a day yeah that was kind of that was getting weak and in the in that process we would in between batches and stuff we'd be uh shredding up the Cabbage for the next day and what time would you start in the morning on something like this usually like about eight o'clock is when we'd start actually canning now we get up like six and get go up and get it started so is this your how many how many my family members have usually worked there at the time you've got brothers and sisters yeah yeah I have five brothers and three sisters um that was me and my two brother just older me and one just younger that did most of it at the time that I was working there so yeah that was pretty much we pretty much did both yeah we did most of it most of the three of us and dad would run off you know take orders and take care of the paperwork and all that stuff so so now your dad's got people that buy this and sell it all over southeastern United States and it's interesting maybe we'll get to come see what he does when I talked to Leon there a little while ago he was talking about how that his family moved here about 2004 and that the Mennonites kind of moved around and set up new communities in different areas I wasn't really familiar with that so yeah so they'll find a new location and sell you sold out your business and moved back here to Virginia ended up in Virginia so what year did you end up here in Virginia well what happened there when I when I sold out in North Carolina I thought I was I was done in the store business and there's little community over Brooksville Kentucky I had a daughter and son-in-law living there so we thought that's a good place for an old man about 65 years old to uh to move to but I guess they're a little like I am too they were a little bit adventuresome and they for some of them decided to do a little Outreach thing in Brazil from my oldest daughter now son-in-laws all right that's a male carrier and yeah I I lived over there about five years and within my daughter son-in-law decided to leave from there but uh I thought we were gonna stay but meanwhile then see this had started out of just a little Bakery down the road here and they were gonna close it up and uh they just couldn't find any anyone to uh take it over and a couple times you know they knew I I had a experience in this kind of a business and so they started calling me and wondering if I would be interested in coming over there here and and taking it over and I know the person I said no I never even dreamed I said no way I did not doing anything like that again but anyway a couple times and anyway they were just getting ready to auction it off and close it up and they did one more please so anyway all of a sudden they started my son-in-law that uh yeah he lived here yeah they came over and picked me up and we came over here and looked it over and all of a sudden it just seemed like the spirit woke up and I said you know I think I'd like to do this kind of made us snap decision and but anyway here we are we were very small down uh you probably don't know where the building is but it's about exactly four miles on the right down here where the uh they sell the storage building and then uh then your grandson Leon will work for you well he didn't at that time yeah I see Leon has [Music] worked for us and has came into the about five years ago I believe because he was just a young man when we moved over here because it's 14 years and uh but anyway it just gradually grew and grew and I mean it was just I always said hey it's a wonder we don't get shut down it's like a third world business here but you know I I'm I'm the kind of person I I think you know you take everything to the Lord what do you mean you know anything see I have a sign that says God is my source but it but all of a sudden when I could hardly keep up with the record keeping and so on Leon was teaching school here for about three years and he was looking for something else and I said hey would you want to come down here and work will work for us and uh and and be the floor manager and I said I know you're you're into computer and I want you to just get whatever you need to get set up but anyway at that time we didn't know about this building you know we were just pulling my hair and said what could we do and all of a sudden one day we heard Pizza Plus closing here and so on anyway if you make a long story I'm kind of a wordy rehearsal but but that's how we got up here I guess I owned it two years and then it was time to hand it over to Leon yeah how'd you feel that day when Leon took over well I I was relieved yeah yeah didn't have that responsibility of everything you just come in if you want to take it and you work I bet you still I bet you show up on a regular basis here though well I do in a way sometimes I work more it then but at my age one reason I do because I can tell it's good for my health I sit at home I I have a few physical things that vex me but not too bad but the best thing I could do is be upright here so it's it's just been a blessing just a blessing from the Lord yeah yeah well I see some other stuff right here on the counter here's some Yoder natural uh CBD yeah is this one of the family members maybe one of the yoders here this company it is I have it's what my nephew and his wife they live at uh close to Seneca South Carolina his wife she's a he's a trained herbalist and so on and so uh they're the ones that do that all right we need to take care of customers you folks have everything you need yes sir yes sir all right get in the Groove here all right y'all welcome yeah I'm from Pennington I've seen you on the the whale on the wall on there yeah that's what we're doing here we're making a video about uh the store y'all sharp here quite a bit yeah yeah every time we're down here I need to come back and stock up on a few things yeah they got some uh different stuff here don't they yeah got some good stuff well worth your money thank you 1561. put a penny there for you all right thank you very very nice yes I met Leon they had a festival about three weeks ago down at the park yeah and they were set up and we were filming and then talked to him about coming up here and filming what they do so we got here this morning and been filming them in the kitchen a little bit so we'll have a video there before too long what's y'all's names I'm Wayne Callan this is Lisa and I'm John Ward in this place so you're the first customers we film ringing up so you might be on the video there okay is that all right y'all have a good day all right bye sir yeah I wish you could have hit us in the day maybe when we were busy when he's uh vet school students turn up you know we we almost feel like we're part of that sometimes these students are in here for three or four years so we get get to know a lot of them just personally and they know us no so maybe you can help me figure this out so if I wanted a chicken salad sandwich what would I put on here so you would Circle chicken salad sandwich down there at the bottom okay and then you can Circle the type of bread you want now he said you had an Italian cheese today that you normally don't have it's on here you can use that is that something that would work with that sandwich that's not normal though um that's only on Wednesdays what I'm saying is it normal for people to put chicken salad on the Italian cheese bread um I've never made a sandwich like that before on sourdough bread usually yeah well maybe I should go with what people normally go with yes sir though okay right so third over there okay and then if you want cheese or coffee [Music] special on the very bottom okay okay and then if you want the soup of the day it's not actually on the paper right now so just write it on there so can I switch it to a turkey okay just circled the turkey that you want we have a couple cool what's your popular one on the Turkey um pan roasted turkey but that's the regular yeah oh you're making Fried Pies [Music] [Music] we go ahead and slice up the meat and cheese before our day starts and we weigh on our meat everyone Every Sandwich gets a quarter pound of meat and a slice and a half of cheese [Music] even when we're really busy like we normally are all we have to do is just reach in and grab in a certain spot and we know what we're grabbing no right words are yes because they're being filled up because of at lunch time so it's empty all the time [Music] so now what type of bread is that it's not a cheesy bread cheesy bread she makes that too Italian cheesy bread [Music] foreign [Music] ER the one that does all the baking now how many hours a week does she works maybe 10 to 12 hours a day every day armor Works 10 to 12 hours a day wow and she went to take a day off one time and to prepare for the following day when she wasn't going to be here she worked 17 hours the woman is amazing we wouldn't do we couldn't do this without her at all is that yours yes ma'am thank you so you wrap the order form right on top of it how about that they don't know what's in there and he can ring it up and here you could we slice it and we put it in these containers for our sandwiches and that way when someone orders it's already ready to go and we're not having to slice per order but it's done fresh every morning the cheese doesn't sit out for long and we go through a lot of it right there and where Every Sandwich gets one and a half slices buy some more and then we just cut this in half and we put it in here so that each sandwich gets one and a half slices [Music] so they said you made the chicken salad too yeah I do so how late do you work during the day here I'm sorry how late do you work too um noon sometimes it's a little bit later but I try and be out of here by noon [Music] me 50. 1637. no this is really a neat system to do this you know may the customers enjoy it they can do it make a custom sandwich but they're actually doing a work you know make it easier for us you know some places you'll go into custom sandwich there they have to write it down we could we could hardly make all these sandwiches the customers didn't do some of the work for us when I came over here and they were making sandwiches I wonder if we could do it but anyways uh not that much to it when you when you got the bed bread already it made it easier yeah and of course you have a have help now that knows how to do it and all that the lady that does all the bacon uh what's her name Irma yeah Irma raver yeah she's she's a busy lady ain't she I just want to tell you she is she is something else I asked him who made the chicken salad they said Arma and anything I ask about they she bakes everything in here I guess almost right these other girls help some too but she'll come in early in the morning and you know I've said already don't say that too loudly we could sit pair twice probably I don't know what Lynn pays her but anyway she's worth every penny she did it's hard to it's hard to find a good worker like that ain't it yeah well she she you know she grew up in an Amish home up in North Pennsylvania and on a dairy farm and she was used to working from little up and well me and Jacobs came out here to the little Pavilion that they have outside to eat our sandwiches that we got uh we're gonna take a little break then go in and finish up it's been a very interesting experience today learning about the different foods and the different things that they do I'm gonna get this sandwich ate so we can get back to work some eggs I don't like pickle stuff but you probably do Jam [Music] some blackberry jam seedless blackberry jam over here some stuff did you see Jordan Harmon's earlier all right [Music] oh here they are this is one of our favorites right here definitely got to have some of them chocolate covered gummy bears chocolate covered covered gummy bears foreign [Music] thank you [Music] I got a question for you what's the difference on these two this one here we mix up here I believe and this is something we get out of Ohio or Pennsylvania Mrs Miller's homemade noodle company it's my favorite I love that marshmallow stuff I've done it before so where did you did you I got it as a Christmas gift okay I went for it for a long time they're made with the uh old-fashioned dried apples 4.98 and okay [Music] 57.82 cents thank you hey you can get as many of those calories you want and there's some big ones back there on the shelves that are free too okay so you got calendars here you got some bigger ones in the back yeah okay along the back wall there on the bottom shelf you'll see them there they're all okay [Music] [Music] what's your name Sarah Sarah you still back here yeah he's over there we got some Drone footage I'll send you some of those pictures by yourself so you can use them for whatever you need them thought about that action while I saw you out there yeah yeah I'll send you what I got okay Sun finally came out yeah so I'm seeing uh a couple of uh items I know we've talked about the stuff your dad makes and you said you had a brother that provides beef for y'all yeah and there's some other items out there from family right I think that's about it as far as I know I saw some CBD stuff is that okay yeah yeah they'd be uh that'd be my wife I mean sorry my grandpa's nephew does that so be my mom 's first cousin or whatever and then beat the same deal on that hand as well I forgot about that on the what the Yoder's country ham the ham okay that would have been my great uncle dead started that okay so seems like the the minute Mennonites seemed to the big business people really they make and manufacture and yeah yeah I mean it was you know originally back in the day it would have been a lot of farming would have been done uh but it's younger time that's the Family Farm is kind of isn't what it used to be you're not able to make a living the way you used to be there so he switched a lot to more manufacturing and food businesses and things like that so yeah well we've had a great visit we bought us up a bunch of stuff and uh take it back and we're glad that you let us come today and yeah and video anything else you got to think of you might want to tell people just glad that y'all are here appreciate you doing this and uh any people out there come on by and see us we're glad to have you come see that in charges he said we can have these cups yeah yeah great yeah well Sam [Music] it's been an honor meeting you and I'll be back and we'll talk again another time okay yeah thank you [Music]

Channel: The Appalachian Channel

Views: 1,455,812

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Id: dBthE64FjtE

Length: 43min 46sec (2626 seconds)

Published: Sun Nov 06 2022