Walk into Shawnee Grocery in Stout, Ohio, and chances are high you’ll see owner Carrie McCaw, her husband Zachary or one of their three kids working behind the counter. “My parents bought the store in 1997 and I loved to be here as a girl,” McCaw said. “This convenience store is in my blood and our eight-year-old daughter loves it as much as I did at her age.”

The history of the site goes back further than the McCaw family—the concrete was poured for the original foundation in 1941. “My parents took over the store for a while before leasing it half a dozen times,” she said. “It’s always been a convenience store, and my parents added gas, diesel and kerosene.”

When her parents decided to retire in 2007, McCaw asked to take over the business. “I wanted a chance to prove I could make it work after so many others who leased it didn’t,” she said. “It has made a profit every year since then.”

Stocking Up

One of McCaw’s first challenges was figuring out what to carry in the store. “Since we’re in a rural area near a campground, we knew we needed to be a one-stop shop,” she said. Shawnee Grocery stocks a wide variety of items, from hardware to groceries, including plumbing fixtures, green beans, stuffing, flour and baking soda among the vast array of products. “Since town is about 30 minutes away for most people, we carry a little bit of everything,” McCaw said.

The heart of the store is its deli counter with fresh-sliced meats and cheeses. “Nothing is prepackaged—we slice it right in front of the customer,” McCaw said, adding that in the summer, deli sandwiches are made with fresh tomato slices from the store’s outdoor plants. The deli also sells house-made salads, like macaroni, potato, ham and chicken, and the grill serves burgers, grilled chicken, steak hoagies, plus fish and ribs. For breakfast the store makes burritos, breakfast sandwiches and breakfast bowls. A pizza oven bakes fresh pies, and the store makes homemade cheesecake, too.

In addition, customers can pick up propane, ice, oil, candy, dog food and treats, chips, beer, wine and low-proof liquor. “We sell quite a bit of dog food in the bigger bags, which was surprising for us,” she said. Tobacco, vape and CBD round out the selection. “But if there’s something a customer wants that we don’t have, I’ll special order it for them,” McCaw said. “They’re always really excited when we tell them the item is now in stock.”

Getting the Word Out

The family lives in an apartment above the store, so locals have gotten to know them well. “Our kids—a 10-year-old boy, an 8-year-old girl and a 4-year-old boy—are in and out of the store since we homeschool them,” McCaw said. “They help out by running the register or greeting customers. Often, they teach some of our new employees how to count back change.”

The employees are part of what makes Shawnee Grocery popular with tourists and locals alike. “One thing I do to help make our workers’ lives easier is publish the shift [schedules] at least a month in advance, so they can make plans for their lives and don’t miss important family events,” McCaw said. “That has helped with retention a lot and made the work atmosphere much more like a family.”

McCaw supports the community through raffle donations and setting out “giving jars” for customers to donate to charitable organizations. Shawnee Grocery also regularly supplies the candy passed out at the local parades. The store has an active Facebook page with a growing following. “We post on it regularly, and usually anytime I post about a product, within a few hours someone’s coming in for that item,” McCaw said.

She plans to pave the gravel parking lot and perhaps expand it into the adjacent property to accommodate the growing number of customers who stop by the store. “A paved lot would provide more uniform spaces and that would help with parking,” McCaw said.

Overall, her greatest desire is for “customers to find everything they’re looking for and for the clerks who ring them up to be kind to them,” she said. “That’s what we strive to be for our customers.”