Step into Roaring Pines convenience store and your first thought will be, “They sure don’t make ’em like this anymore.”
The Church Hill shop seeks to bring back an emphasis on American manufacturing of everyday items. Owner Drew Dayberry stocks old-fashioned home goods mixed with modern reproductions, aiming to provide sturdy products that last.
The store has an old-timey feel with a bar where kids can gather around a drugstore-style soda fountain. Dayberry even dresses the part, in blue coveralls. For sale are such practical items as galvanized mop buckets and military-grade blankets. But Dayberry also has a fun side and stocks cardboard airplanes, Frisbees and Lincoln Logs. But quality is sometimes costly. A laundry caddie from Steele Canvas runs $79.95.
Before he opened at 2025 Venable St. in February, Dayberry sold his products through roaringpines.com, launched three years ago. He honed expertise in marketing the store’s vintage feel during a previous career at a West Coast advertising agency.
Dayberry says his goal for stocking all American products isn’t political. “It’s about supporting your neighbors,” he says. “It’s a small victory if someone finds something made in the Midwest and not across the Pacific.”