GREENVILLE — Poinsett Highway in Greenville is dotted with mechanic shops and car lots.
At the intersection of the highway and Hammett Street Extension, Lee Lake Evette Jr. operated a used car shop since 1977. Starting in early 2022, the building that once served as the base of his operation will reopen as a smoked meats take out market called Block and Barley, co-owned by brothers Bruce and David Carter.
The renovated 1,300 square-foot building, sitting on about a tenth of an acre at 624 Poinsett Highway, will maintain a gas-station-feel, David Carter said. The main structure has been kept intact along with staple aspects of the building, including a partial roll up door and outdoor bathroom access. The market will sell cuts of both raw and cooked meats, seasonings, sides and alcohol for takeout.
Carter has been a resident of Greenville since the summer of 1994 when he co-founded a graphic t-shirt company called The Graphic Cow.
On the side, Carter has a passion for startup businesses. He has had stakes in multiple startups, including a restaurant in Virginia, an apparel brand consulting company, a landscape lighting and irrigation business and the baseball development business, Landon Powell Hit House, on Mauldin Road.
“Most recently, I was driving down that stretch of Poinsett Highway and just really thinking to myself that this particular area is probably due for a little bit of a facelift and possibly some redevelopment,” Carter said.
Carter contacted a commercial broker to learn more about the property where Evette’s Used Cars once resided. He was then connected to Evette, 84, who had operated the lot for decades.
Last year, Evette’s wife, who encouraged him to keep the shop going to give him something to do, passed away from cancer. When Carter approached Evette, Evette said he “quizzed him pretty hard.”
“I like him. He’s got thoughts. He’s wide-open. He’s young,” Evette said about Carter.
A rendering of Block and Barley, a smoked meats takeout market coming to Poinsett Highway in Greenville. Provided/David Carter
According to the county public records from its Geographical Information System, the last time the property was sold was on Nov. 6, 2020 for $350,000. It was sold to Bishop and Blade, LLC, whose registered agent is J. David Carter.
Evette said that his time as a used car salesman was good to him and that he was happy, but he doesn’t miss coming down to Poinsett Highway every day. Since his wife’s passing, he cleans the house and tends to his yard, saying it's like a full-time job.
“Everybody said, ‘You’re going to be bored to death going home, nothing to do.’ I said, ‘When I do get bored, I’ll call.' I ain’t called nobody, yet,” Evette said.
Evette will act as a quasi-ambassador on the project, Carter said
“I told him, he's got lunch for free for his life,” Carter said.
One side of the market will be a traditional butcher shop where customers can buy meats, seasonings and talk to a chef about food preparation. On the other side, there will be a smoker to prepare meats for takeout. The inside will have no seats but the outside will have a few tables under a canopy.
The inspiration for the market stems from Carter’s interest in smoking meats as a hobby and his observation that after the pandemic hit, many restaurants struggled to execute takeout well.
“Everything we prepare, one of our first questions is going to be: How will that particular product, how will that take out?,” Carter said.
The staff will include a leadership team of general manager Andy Griscom and executive chef Nicci Hughes, as well as four to six full time employees and eight to 10 part time employees.
Construction should be completed by the end of the year and the market will then have a soft opening near the beginning of 2022. From there, Carter said the only thing he can guarantee anyone is that the market will evolve through trial and error.
“Part of it we’ll get right, part of it we’ll get wrong, but the only thing we're committed to is not being dug in on any one aspect of it,” Carter said.
“We want to be one of those first landmarks as you're approaching downtown, and we're hoping that we're going to be the catalyst that really brings on a lot of development on Poinsett,” Carter said.
In late October, Hartness Development announced it would establish an “innovation district” across the street from the market at the former Pepsi-Cola bottling company building. Crescent Startup Community is a planned multi-phase revitalization project, with the first phase expected to be complete in late 2022. Later phases of development will include the land where the Piedmont Shirt Factory once operated.
It is intended as a hub for entrepreneurs and startups to collaborate, housing companies and organizations such as the South Carolina Research Authority, VentureSouth and Furman University’s Institute for Innovation and Entrepreneurship.
