SPANKY'S ICE CREAM AND THE FIFTY-FIFTY STORE (Cheri)

No kidding, the trip was really all about ice cream, but we were lucky and also found a fixed-in-time relic that I'd been looking for almost since we moved here.

(Image Source:  TripAdvisor.com)

There are plenty of things we should have been doing today, but we decided to head down to Spanky's Homemade Ice Cream & Deli, in Salisbury, NC, which is just under an hour from home.

(Image Source:  Yelp.com)

If you are an ice cream lover and have been to Yuba City, California, think Brock's Ice Cream Palace . . . great flavor, rich, and chewy!

We have plans to spend a full day in Salisbury, so not a lot more about the two major streets that intersect - coincidentally - right at the corner where Spanky's is located, but here are a couple of pictures from the entry to a shuttered traditional drug store that Mark took:

Here is the ghost of some advertising that has been partially covered by subsequent construction, which I saw between our parking spot and Spanky's:

One of the things we want to see is the remains of the Confederate Military Prison, located a few blocks away.

Not long after we moved here, we had come into Salisbury from the south.  We happened upon a store full of vintage items in the middle of a historic residential area.  It really didn't look like it had been operated in quite some time.

I thought that I had made sufficient notes to come see it another day, but when I looked at my notes months later, I found that they were for another historic building in town.  Was I ever going to find it again?  Would it still be full of wares?  Why was it?

Luckily it wasn't too far away from the area where I thought we would find it.  It's in Salisbury's Brooklyn–South Square Historic District, a national historic district which includes 88 buildings, all but three of which are houses.

This makes me nostalgic for the corner stores in San Francisco's neighborhoods . . . so convenient, and often found in old houses.

There isn't a lot of online information to find about the Fifty-Fifty Store, but what is available primarily focuses on the  presumed reason for its name:

Most people would think the name is just some odd choice picked by the owner
but the truth is so much more odd and interesting. See, the name comes from the
shelving system in the store. This little store has unique revolving shelves!
The shelves are on a center swivel and when they are turned, they reveal a
whole new set of items. Kind of like a magic grocery store.

(Source:  Instagram, and the documentation supporting the nomination of the Brooklyn–South Square area as a National Historic Place.)

OK, that's a little interesting, but why is there still stock in the store?  It was really difficult to get pictures, what with the time of day, curtains covering part of the windows, and the diamond-grid security bars on the front door, but I was able to get some shots:

Any idea why being "rich in dextrose" is a selling point?

The advertisement is apparently for a 1954 movie which starred Audie Murphy.

The National Historic Place nomination document states that the store was opened in about 1928, was sold to the Lyerly family in 1932, and the Lyerlys ran it until 1981.  A brief mention in a local realtor's newsletter states that bare-knuckle boxing matches used to be held above the store.

Sooo, what about the last 40+ years?  Absolutely no idea, but I'm glad we found it again.