Simple Blessings brings touch of nostalgia to downtown
Published 5:55 pm Tuesday, March 21, 2017
- Star Photo/Abby Morris-Frye Rita Russell, at left, recently opened Simple Blessings General Store in downtown Elizabethton. She is shown here with her daughter, Beth Laws, who helps her out in the store.
Old country stores bring back a sense of nostalgia with the many unique items shoppers can find on the shelves, and an Elizabethton family is hoping to bring that feel to downtown.
One month ago, the Russell family opened the doors to Simple Blessings General Store, located at 508 E. Elk Avenue in the historic downtown. This coming weekend, the store will host a special Grand Opening celebration. On Saturday at 9:30 a.m. the Russell family will hold a small dedication and ribbon cutting ceremony. At 10 a.m., they will open the store for a day filled with door prizes, special deals, and shopping.
Rita and Keith Russell both grew up in Carter County — her in the Gap Creek and Powder Branch communities, him in Hampton.
“Winn-Dixie was our high school jobs,” Rita said. The pair met while working together and have been inseparable ever since. Next month the couple will celebrate their 37th wedding anniversary.
Growing up here, both Rita and Keith have fond memories from their younger days of shopping downtown with their families. Rita recalled the stores and the wide variety of things you could find in the downtown shops.
Over the years as the family traveled, they would go out of their way to find little quaint country stores that reminded them of those early shopping experiences.
Rita decided she wanted to share the atmosphere of those old general stores with others, and she knew just the place to do it.
“I felt like it was missing downtown,” she said.
Rita said she and Keith wanted to own a business that was family oriented. That plan also worked out as the couple’s two daughters and a grandchild help them out in the store.
Even the store’s name has its own story.
“I thought about how we had been blessed so much as a family,” Rita said. “We wanted this to be a blessing to others, not just our family.”
Rita said she read a verse in the Bible directing Christians to be a blessing to others and the family has adopted that as the store’s motto to go along with the name Simple Blessings.
Like the old country stores the family enjoys in other locations, Simple Blessings General Store features a wide variety of merchandise. The shelves and tables contain everything from candy and cookware to toys and clothing, with a lot more in between. The Russell family is also giving some local artists and crafters a place to showcase and sell their work. Simple Blessings features jewelry, walking sticks, custom-made wooden signs, fudge and wood carvings all created by local artisans.
The store also offers the popular Lodge cast iron and Rada cutlery lines of products, as well as a full line of jams, jellies, pickles, preserves, and mixes.
Nestled in the back of the store is a food counter offering hot dogs, nachos, cold sandwiches, kettle chips, ice cream soda floats, and a variety of other treats.
At Saturday’s Grand Opening event, the store will hold a prize drawing for the giraffe displayed in the front window. The store held a contest to name the giraffe with ‘Archy’ being the winning name. Since the store opened on Feb. 22, the family has been collecting entries for a chance to win Archy at the Grand Opening during a special drawing to be held at 4 p.m. on Saturday. Visitors to the store have until Saturday afternoon to drop by the store and enter to win, Rita said.
Simple Blessings will have exclusive sales and door prizes not only Saturday but also as a bit of an early celebration on Friday. Details on those giveaways will be announced on the store’s Facebook page.