Date: Mon, 30 Jan 2012 11:26:29 -0500 (EST)
From: Doug Lorie
Subject: General Store Passages
I was taking a hiatus from teaching and had just injured my shoulder while working as a punch-list carpenter. I was in a familiar place emotionally, feeling at a dead end about my options for work. That was precisely the time when Mimi Sharpe asked me to be a guest chef at The General Store. Two weeks later we had negotiated my temp position into a full time job. If there ever existed a thing like serendipity or synchronicity or the unviverse giving you something that was wanted or needed….for me that job was it.
Having lived in New Mexico and having fallen in love with a certain Green Chile Burrito, I knew that it was the first thing I wanted on the menu. The 2nd thing was a Middle Eastern Platter. It dind’t take long for all of my favorite vegetarian dishes to make it onto the menu, Pesto Pasta, Foccacia Pizza, Palak Paneer and J erk Tempeh. The folks who bought The G eneral Store from Mimi, Richard McGough and Becket Royce, became such amazing bosses.. While their personal savings were being depleted they allowed me to have the most satisfying work experience of me life. T he kitchen back then was configured in such a way that I could see my customers and connect with them while I was cooking. I could never be one of those chefs cloistered away in the hot confines of a kitchen that was totally disconected from the people coming in  to eat.  It was very hard, deadline rich and physical work, but I als o played like a kid spoofing MacDonald’s by counting every Green Chile Burrito I made and sold. Richard and B ecket went way beyond the call of duty by taking over for me in the kitchen while I took two separate trips to Peru and India. I will forever be grateful to them for the ways they sacrificed for me.  This job remains for me the best job of my life.
Vance and Joyce took the business to another level , constructing a performance theater , building a state-of-the art kitchen and providing space for local artists. I charge someone to tell me which 2 square inches of space in The G eneral Store C afe  were not being used to help artists sell their work.
I don’t know how anyone makes a profit in the restaurant business or keeps from getting totally burnt out. The hours are gruelling and  the overhead is huge. I often think that the only sure money makers are fast food stores. But with any of those places you have to sell your soul and merge all semblance of personal identity into the collective identity of the franchise. T he General Store Cafe was…and I am sad using the past tense…a brilliant magnet for community. I am happy to have had a small part in being able to give something to Pittsboro and  facilitating a bit of  that community experience. Among the wonderful things that Joyce and Vance sold over the years….their soul wasn’t one of them.
Doug Lorie