This Old-Fashioned Texas General Store Is Stacked With Bulk Foods and Homemade Goods

I will drive a long way for a store that still sells food out of a bin. Not a shelf of shrink wrap and barcodes, an actual bin, with a scoop, where you take home exactly as much as you need and not an ounce more.

There is something honest about shopping that way. You see the food before you buy it. You decide the amount. Nobody has decided for you that a recipe requires the whole bag when you only wanted a handful.

That is the whole appeal of a country store in Itasca that has quietly become a reason to pull off the interstate. It is a place of plain, wholesome plenty, rows of bulk foods, homemade goods stacked to the rafters, and a deli counter that turns fresh bread into lunch.

The name is Olde Towne Country Store, and it sits right on Main Street in a small Hill County town most drivers blow past at seventy.

Below, here is what fills those bins, what comes out of the bakery, and the family story that got it all to this little town between Waco and Fort Worth.

Rows and Rows of Bulk Bins

Walk in and the first thing you notice is the scale of the pantry. Containers line the aisles holding dried beans, whole grains, rice, nuts, seeds, and baking supplies. If your recipe calls for it, odds are there is a bin for it.

This is shopping the old way, before everything came pre-portioned. You want a cup of pecans, you buy a cup of pecans. You want ten pounds of flour for holiday baking, that is here too, and it costs a fraction of what the fancy grocery charges.

The spice selection is the part regulars rave about. Herbs and seasonings you would otherwise hunt down at three different stores sit together in one place, priced by weight so you are not paying for a jar you did not want.

Baking supplies get the same treatment. Chocolate chips, oats, dried fruit, and flours line up by the scoop, which is a small miracle around the holidays when every recipe seems to call for one more odd ingredient.

It is the kind of stock a serious home cook dreams about. No mystery blends, no filler, just clean single ingredients you measure out yourself. There is a quiet thrill in filling a bag with cinnamon or dried cranberries and knowing it will actually get used.

You leave with a sack of real food and change from a bill that would buy you far less at a big-box grocery. That math is a big part of why people keep making the drive, and why they tend to come back with a longer list the second time.

The Bakery Case Is the Real Trap

Here is where willpower goes to die. The bakery turns out fresh bread daily, and the loaves do double duty, they anchor the deli menu and they go home by the armful.

The jalapeno cheese bread has a small cult following. Regulars will tell you to grab a loaf before you do anything else, because it sells and it does not last past midday.

Then there are the fried pies. If you have never had a proper Texas fried pie, picture a hand pie with a golden, crisp shell folded around a warm fruit filling.

The pumpkin is a standout, and it is best eaten in the parking lot before you have pulled back onto the road. Apple and cherry show up too, and none of them last long in the box.

Pies, cookies, and pastries round out the case, the kind of things that vanish the second you set the box on a kitchen counter at home. Did you know a fried pie travels beautifully? Buy a few extra for whoever is waiting at home, they will forgive you the detour.

The smell alone is worth the stop. You walk through the door into warm bread and sugar, and any plan you had to shop quick and leave is finished before it started.

Handmade Jars and Homemade Goods

Beyond the bins and the bakery, the shelves fill up with the good stuff. Jars of handmade jellies and preserves, snacks, canned goods, and the small pantry treasures that make a store like this feel like a treasure hunt.

My weakness is always the jelly shelf. There is a certain joy in a jar someone actually cooked down, sealed, and labeled by hand, rather than a factory run of identical squeeze bottles.

You find kitchen supplies and gift items mixed in too, so a quick grocery run turns into a browse. Half the fun is not knowing exactly what you will walk out with.

It is the sort of place where you go in for flour and leave with flour, a jar of jam, a loaf of bread, and a gift for someone whose birthday is still a month away.

Nobody has ever accused a country store of being efficient, and that is exactly the point. You are supposed to linger, read the labels, and let the trip take a little longer than it needed to.

Lunch Worth Leaving the Highway For

The deli is what turns a supply stop into a meal. Meats and cheeses are sliced to order, and the sandwiches are built on that fresh-baked bread, which changes everything about a sandwich.

Regulars swear by the black forest ham on the jalapeno cheese bread. One reviewer called it simply “one of the best sandwiches I have ever had,” and the folks behind the counter hear that a lot.

The portions are generous in the way you hope a country store would be. Order the foot-long and you get something closer to fifteen inches, enough to split with someone or to save half for the drive home.

There is soup and chili when the weather turns cool, and a few tables if you want to eat right there instead of in the car. As one visitor put it, this is “a wonderful place to stop in for a fresh lunch.”

Pro tip, come hungry and order the sandwich on whatever bread came out of the oven that morning. Then grab a fried pie for dessert and pretend you were always going to share it.

From a Grandview Staple to a Main Street Fixture

The roots of this place go back to a store simply called The Country Store, run by Edwin and Leah Miller along Interstate 35 in nearby Grandview. It built a loyal following for its bakery and its honest, simple ingredients.

In 2017, James and Jennifer Martin partnered with the Miller family. The Martins had already run a country store of their own for nine years before moving to the area in 2014.

That meant they knew the long early mornings it takes to open a bakery case by eight. It is a full trade, not a hobby, passed carefully from one family to the next.

The arrangement split things along everyone’s strengths. The Millers kept baking, the Martins ran the retail side, and together they moved the whole operation into a renovated building on West Main Street in Itasca and gave it the name it carries now.

Both founding families carry surnames long tied to plain-living communities, and longtime customers still speak fondly of “the old Mennonite store” that once sat out by the highway.

So think of this as a country store carrying the Mennonite tradition of simple, wholesome food, more than a formal outpost of one.

The store itself leans on that heritage rather than any label, and its own telling puts the accent on a love of food and a wish to feed the community well. That is a quieter story than a marketing hook, and it happens to be the true one.

What has not changed is the idea underneath it all. Real ingredients, made by hand, sold without fuss, to a community that keeps coming back. That formula was working long before it moved to Itasca, and it is working still.

The Town That Grew Up Around the Railroad

Itasca itself is worth a slow look while you are here. The town was platted in 1881 as the railroad pushed through Hill County, with the first town lots going on sale that October. It took its name from Lake Itasca, up at the head of the Mississippi.

There is a nice bit of symmetry in a bulk-goods store thriving here. The very first building ever put up in Itasca was a general store, so a place like this is not new to the town, it is the town’s oldest idea.

It sits right on Interstate 35 in the flat farm country between Fort Worth and Waco, which is exactly what makes the store such an easy detour. You are never really out of your way to get here.

A stop like this pairs well with the kind of day where you are in no hurry. Get your bulk goods and your sandwich, walk the couple of old blocks of Main Street, and let the pace of a small Texas town slow you down for an hour.

What to Know Before You Go

The store keeps country hours. It opens early most mornings and closes by late afternoon, with shorter hours on Saturday and closed on Sunday, so aim for a weekday or a Saturday morning rather than a lazy Sunday one.

Bring a cooler if you are loading up on deli meats, cheeses, and baked goods for the trip home. Bring a little patience for yourself at the bulk bins too, because deciding how much of everything you actually need is half the experience.

If you want a party tray or a big deli order, call ahead so it is ready to grab and go. Weekends around the holidays get busy, and the bakery case empties fastest of anything in the place.

Whether you live down the road or you are just passing through on the interstate, it is the kind of stop that rewards the pull-off. You came for a sandwich and you leave with a trunk full of good food.

How to Get There

Where: Olde Towne Country Store, 102 W Main St, Itasca, TX 76055

You will find it right on Main Street in the heart of town, an easy hop off Interstate 35. Call ahead at (254) 687-5052 if you want a deli order or a tray ready when you arrive.

Fill Your Pantry the Old-Fashioned Way

Some stops are worth building a drive around, and a store stacked with bulk bins, handmade jars, warm bread, and fried pies is exactly that kind of stop.

Point the car toward Itasca, take your time at the bins, and grab an extra fried pie for the road. You will be glad you did before you reach the next exit.

Featured image: Cheryl Wirkus via Olde Towne Country Store