A Fork in the Road Podcast: Carroll's Sausage and Country Store

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Carroll's Sausage in Ashburn, GA

 

Hugh Hardy: We're one of the largest Georgia Grown retailers on all the interstate right now on Interstate 75. And we have a lot of people who come in our store and set up quite frequently doing samples and different things, too. So you can come in and try the products before you actually buy. So are a lot of people a lot of our customers enjoy that.

David Zelski: The old time country store is a staple in small towns here in the South, food and products made locally by members of your community. As our cities grow and stores like this become rarer and rarer, we need to hold tight to the places we still have places like Carroll's Sausage and Country Store.

Theme Song: I came from the mud, there's dirt on my hands. Strong like a tree, there's roots where I stand.

David Zelski: I'm David Zelski, and this is the Fork in the Road podcast presented by Georgia Grown and the fine folks at Georgia Public Broadcasting. Each episode, we feature stories from Georgia's farmers, fishermen, merchants, artisans, chefs, and others who help provide Georgia Grown products to folks in the Peach State and beyond. Today, we are south of Macon, south of Perry, just past Cordele, right off I-75 in Ashburn, Georgia. Not far from the giant peanut. This is where we'll find Hugh Hardy. He's the owner of Carroll's Sausage and Country Store.

Hugh Hardy: Carroll's Sausage was established in 1988 and it was a family business then. And it still is a family business, even even now today. And I've owned the company for just a little over 20 years. And we're just basically Carroll's Sausages, an old, old fashioned, old timey style butcher shop where you can get your meat custom cut. We make fresh sausage every day and we smoke and make our own sausage right here in-house. Right now, we employ close to 50 employees with two locations. We have a store right here on Interstate 75 in Ashburn, Georgia. And then we have a location also in Sylvester, Georgia, that we opened there in 2004. The company is like I say, it's been in business for almost well over 30 years now. So it's been around a long time. We've got customers as travel here from as far as Miami. We have a lot of customers that come down weekly from Atlanta and just all over the United States. We have a tremendous shipping business. Our online business is just growing daily. And so we're blessed, real blessed with that.

David Zelski: Have you ever wished that there was one place you could find all the products grown and produced here in Georgia? Well, you won't find them all here at Carroll's Sausage and Country Store, but I'll tell you, you'll find a whole lot of them.

Hugh Hardy: One of the things here at Carroll's that we do is our Georgia Grown program. We invite anyone that has Georgia Grown products that's looking for retail space to come and bring some samples to us. And let us try. Let us try it. And if it's something that meets our approval and our standards, we would love to put those products in our store. We add to our Georgia Grown section, you know, every week. So we we really enjoy helping local Georgia Grown vendors. And that's something that we've enjoyed doing through the years. We're one of the largest Georgia Grown retailers on all the interstate right now on Interstate 75. We have everything from Goodson Pecans to Bruce's Honeys. We've got pecan samples here today with CEO, Mr. Drew Goodson with Goodson Pecans. And we have a lot of people who come in our store and set up quite frequently doing samples and different things to do so you can come in and try the products before you actually buy. So there are a lot of people, a lot of our customers in enjoy that.

David Zelski: Seriously, what a fantastic experience. You can walk around this store and meet local producers and sample their wares. This is what community is all about. And Carroll's, of course, produces their own products.

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Jams and jellies at Carroll's Sausage and Country Store

Hugh Hardy: Something that we are known for is our private label jams and jellies. We have just about a flavor for anybody. Everything from seedless to with seeds, sugarless, plum jelly, blackberry, raspberry, strawberry, all the things that, you know, people like peach preserves, you name it. We'll see Miss Ginger over here in just a second with her product. She's got some really good stuff. Back to the Basics. She always has to correct me on it. Back to the Basics. She carries a lot of different pumpkin muffin mixes. What, all you got the sausage ball mix? Peach cobbler...full line of stuff. We carry all her products here. You'll catch her on and off here doing samples sometimes. And we'll carry Abbey J's Blackhawk products from up north. She's up round door up in North Georgia. Oh, yeah. Smoking hot. You probably know her. 

David Zelski: I was on her original label holding a fish.

Hugh Hardy: Oh, okay. Well, good.

David Zelski: My little claim to fame. Yeah, I might be famous. Nah, who am I kidding? Picture a small country store in your mind. Can you smell the fresh meats? See the wood grain on the ceiling? It is cozy, quaint and full of deliciousness.

Hugh Hardy: And one of the things that Caroll's Sausage is really known for is our old fashioned, old timey butcher shop. You can come in and you can order a steak, have it cut any way you want it, or you can just pick one right out of our meat case. We have 7 - 10 butchers on duty most all the time, and all of them are professional butchers. They've been doing it. We've got probably a combined 50 - 60 years of experience in one room back here. But we offer a full line of beef and pork. T-bones, rib eyes, filets, chuck eyes, sirloins, Porterhouse, New York strip. We carry a full line of fresh cut steaks. And they're all cut fresh daily. And we can basically cut one any thickness you want.

David Zelski: Kind of the way you used to be.

Hugh Hardy: That's right. 

David Zelski:  In the most wholesome sense. This store does represent the way it used to be. And I've gone far too long without talking about sausage.

Hugh Hardy: David, This is what we're really famous for. Of course, Caroll's sausage. We have so many different varieties, probably over 50 different flavors right now. One of my favorites is the medium Vidalia onion and cheese sausage, which Vidalia onions are grown in Georgia right up in Vidalia. When we entered the Flavor of Georgia, I wanted to use a Georgia product, which was the Vidalia onion, and we won the Flavor of Georgia in 2017 with that product. But we have so many different flavors from jalapeno and cheese smoked sausage, beef sausage, cheese and syrup, which is one of my wife's favorite. Great on the grill or even just kind of pan fried in the oven. All everything is made right here in house, hand mixed. We use our own blend of seasonings and spices. Of course, this is our pork section. We carry fresh baby backs, fresh Saint Louis ribs, fresh pork chops. Everything's cut fresh right here daily. Sausage stuffed pork chops, that's one of our things that we're famous for. We've got mild, medium, jalapeno and cheese. We have a mild onion and cheese stuffed into a boneless pork chop. And then we wrap that with some of our applewood bacon, which is really, really good.

David Zelski: I know I keep saying small country store, but then Hugh is going on and on and on about the products. Well, that's because while Caroll's Sausage and Country Store does resemble the small country general stores of the past, it is much, much bigger. This place is massive. Tell me about the size of it and how it's grown through the years.

Hugh Hardy: Our whole store right now, we're we're occupying close to 25,000 square feet. We have about a 6000 square foot warehouse on one end, and then our store sits on the center. And then we have about a 4000 square foot restaurant, on the other end. Then we're actually expanding. We're in the middle of expansion right now. We're adding on another a couple of thousand square feet for just our sausage production and processing area and which I hope hopefully is going to help us expanded to some other markets as well.

David Zelski: It is pretty big. And Hugh even has a specific recommendation for you when you make your trip to Caroll's.

Hugh Hardy: So, yeah, we do recommend that you bring bring your ice chests or some coolers with you. We do offer gel packs as well as cooler bags. A lot of people just buy a cooler bag in house. But I do recommend a cooler. We have ice and, you know, will we be glad to pack it you pack any of your products up for travel.

David Zelski:  Bring a cooler and stock up your fridge or your deep freeze or maybe get all you need for your trip down to the beach. Or maybe you just want to set up camp and eat all of this delicious food as soon as possible. You can do that too. People want to come stock up on meat and stay the night. You have an option right next door.

Hugh Hardy: Oh, yeah, that's exactly right. We have an RV park right next door, and it's. It's a pull through. We offer full hook ups. Anything from 50 amp, 30 amp, the regular 110 hook ups. And also each site has its own sewer hookup, so it's fully self contained. We have 20 sites right now available. And I'd say get here early if you want to get a good spot, because they fill up, usually fill up every night.

David Zelski: Honestly, it really is a convenient stopping point. And think about it, you're helping the community. How important is this store been for you and this whole community through the years?

Hugh Hardy:  David, it's been great. We've been able to like I said earlier, we employ around 50 employees and, you know, their families. It's just given their it's given the employees and their families an opportunity to be a part of something that's a family owned family business. And the community we've been able to do a lot of different things for the community as well, participating in a lot of community events. And and it's just been a been a great been a great blessing for for everybody who's been a part of it. We have a lot of our vendors who are who who the Georgia Grown vendors who come and set up different days during the week and they'll bring their products in. And so it's nice that you can taste before you buy. And a lot of people really like that people.

David Zelski: You know, they they go through Macon Pass the Georgia National Fair and then they got to be looking for Caroll's. How can they find you?

Hugh Hardy: Just come on down to Exit 82. And it's right here at Ashburn exit to go west, take the first road to the left and we'll be right there on the left for store in Ashburn sits right on the interstate it faces 75. And then the store in Sylvester is right off of Highway 82 in downtown Sylvester, you can't miss it right at the second red light right in the middle of town.

David Zelski: Yes, the old country store is alive and well in both Ashburn and Sylvester.

 

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I'm David Zelski. Thanks for listening to A Fork in the Road.

The A Fork in the Road TV show airs Saturdays at noon and Sundays at 6:30 a.m. on GPB-TV. Check your local listings for other replays throughout the week and watch all episodes anytime at GPB.org/ForkintheRoad.  Please download and subscribe to the Fork in the Road podcast at GPB.org/ForkintheRoadpodcast or on your favorite podcast platform as well.