After 30 years in the corporate world, I want to begin the next chapter of my life doing something I love. With a passion around food, I originally envisioned myself opening up a sandwich shop but because of the current economy and a few personal health issues I decided that was not the way to go. Instead, I decided to merge my enjoyment of pickles, food and puns, and created an online merchandise store, The Pickle Fetish Co.
After a year of online sales, vendor events, festivals, and outdoor markets, I was looking for something more challenging and came up with the idea of a destination location that would fit in with our local community and encourage folks to come and experience the almighty gherkin. As a result, The Pickle Museum, Mercantile, & Community Place was born.
I am in the beginning stages; finalizing a business plan, curating items for the museum, partnering with wholesalers for the mercantile, and most importantly...acquiring funding.
I have secured a storefront in beautiful downtown Lincolnton, NC which will house our unique, one of a kind collection of pickle memorabilia as well as our pickle and pickled theme mercantile.
The Museum will offer free admission and provide a family friendly, enjoyable, and educational experience. The exhibits will range from, but are not limited to, sports memorabilia to serveware to advertising to toys to pop culture and even a growing art exhibit.
My goal for the mercantile will be to support not only small batch pickle businesses across the U.S. but have a focus on our local picklers and farming community. We are in the process of compiling a list of possible wholesalers we can partner with to provide a wide variety of pickles, pickled flavored food as well other yummy pickled items. We plan to also offer non-edible pickle themed items for pickle enthusiasts to purchase and enjoy.
I would like to host a grand opening before end of Summer 2024 but require the start up funds to pay for rent in the beginning, curate the museum, stock the mercantile, purchase displays and shelving, utilities, maintenance, staffing, marketing & promotion, as well as capital improvements.
Down the road, the idea would also be to have a cozy event space on-site to host food preservation and other homesteading type activities. We look to partner with our local cooperative, 4-H, and educational facilities to host demos, tastings, and practical skill learnings related to canning, fermentation, gardening, etc.
Your contributions to this endeavor will allow a wonderful new destination be created and encourage it to grow into one the most unique museums around. We offer a multitude of donation levels which will allow you to be on the ground floor and become founding contributors with rewards that will not be offered in the future.
