Coffee ☕️ Food 🥪 and Fuel ⛽️ at Charlotteville General Store

[Final transcript by Jerome Kazlauskas]

[00:00:00] Ashley Hearon-Smith: Dad makes the best Reuben in the Catskills. I just want you to know that. Hi, I'm Ashley. I'm his daughter and sometimes publicist and social media person.

[00:00:13] Brett Barry: Who is this Catskills Reuben maker with his own publicist and social media guru? On today's "Kaatscast," we're off to the Charlotteville General Store in Schoharie County, where Reubens and house roasted coffee are both on the menu, and if Charlotteville is too far afield for you, you can meet up with Ashley's dad at a number of farmers markets throughout the Catskills with sandwiches and coffee in tow. In a moment, we'll meet Ashley's dad, whose name is Mark by the way, in an 1872 general store that offers everything from local meats to fuel and fishing bait with a focus and passion for ethically sourced house roasted coffee.

[00:00:55] Campbell Brown: "Kaatscast" is supported by... The Mountain Eagle, covering Delaware, Greene, and Schoharie counties, including brands for the local region such as the Windham Weekly, Schoharie News, Cobleskill Herald, and Catskills Chronicle. For more information, call (518) 763-6854 or email: mountaineaglenews@gmail.com; and by Briars & Brambles Books, the go-to independent book and gift store in the Catskills, located in Windham, New York, right next to the pharmacy, just steps away from the Windham Path. Open daily! For more information, visit briarsandbramblesbooks.com or call (518) 750-8599.

[00:01:37] Brett Barry: Arriving at the Charlotteville General Store on a road that sounds like this. I stepped inside and was greeted by Ashley Hearon-Smith, part-time publicist for this family business with dad, Mark Hearon, at the helm. I met Mark on the second floor roastery, the heart of the store.

[00:01:58] Mark Hearon: So the store is 152 years old. It was built in 1872 and basically this area up here where I do my roasting was the whole reason why we bought the store. I was looking for a place to do my roasting and I needed a place that had space to grow, and this was so ideal because this spa used to be a movie theater. It had stadium-style seating here, and the town would come here to see movies, and then they made it a dance hall. They flattened the floor and it was a dance hall for many years for the town as well, and then it remained empty for a while, then a family lived up here for 40+ years, then there was a small fire in the building, and then it just remained empty again for another 40 years, so yeah, I saw some potential in just roasting up here and having a place to do my stuff and to grow with other machines if I need to or just be able to package up here and do what I need to do.

[00:03:01] Brett Barry: So you've been roasting for a long time, but not here.

[00:03:04] Mark Hearon: Correct.

[00:03:05] Brett Barry: So tell me a little bit about that history [your history] and how you've made your way up to Charlotteville.

[00:03:11] Mark Hearon: Sure, so I grew up in Florida, didn't drink coffee. My family members didn't really drink coffee, and then I met my wife down in Florida. We got married, had my daughter, moved up to the New York City area, New Jersey, and just everybody drank coffee, and I started drinking coffee and started learning a little bit more about coffee and the different roasts and the different blends, and I went on a trip [funny enough] to California and sat in a coffee house... had a lot of time to kill... my wife was with me, and we started talking to one of the roasters. He had a roaster set up in the shop, and he was doing roasting. I was just fascinated, watched him do his roasting. I was immediately hooked. I went to a Coffee Convention, the year after in L.A., and I started learning more about specialty coffee, and I thought this is something I want to do on the side for now and see how it goes. I ended up buying that little sample roaster over there from a coffee shop in... in New Jersey, and started doing my roasting out of the house [a little electric roaster], and it took a while to start figuring out how long to roast for... without burning the beans and humidity and temperature—all those factors—time, and finally got the roast to where I thought it was really an exceptional coffee, and I started sending out samples to friends and family, sent a survey along with the samples, and started getting feedback from everybody on what they liked about the coffee, what maybe they didn't like about the coffee, and just started perfecting my roast from there. I had a full-time job in New York City, and money was good enough where I didn't want to leave that and I wanted to keep doing the roasting on the side. Eventually, I started getting laid off for my job, and then COVID happened, and we had bought some land in the Catskills about 18 years ago, and when COVID happened, we moved up here, and we bought the general store, started doing my roasting up here, and ended up buying this roaster, which is about ten times the capacity of the other roaster. It's a gas-powered roaster, much more efficient, better to roast with, obviously shorter time frames... started going to farmers markets and selling my coffee, and I got my first wholesale account probably a year later, and now the coffee has really caught on. We have a very loyal following. People love the coffee, and we are in about 22-23 locations mostly in the Catskill area, but we have a couple locations in New Jersey and I believe a couple in Western New York as well, too.

[00:05:59] Brett Barry: Where do you get your beans? Because obviously those aren't growing in the Catskills.

[00:06:02] Mark Hearon: No. So, right now, all my beans are fair trade organic. They're also certified Café Femenino, which basically means that the women who do all the work on the farms, they make sure they get paid fair wages, and they even audit the farms to make sure they're doing that. I just pay a little extra per pound for that ability to be able to pay them that fair wage. People don't realize that coffee is one of the most heavily sprayed pesticide crops in the world, so starting with a fair trade organic is absolutely the way to go. I know I... I would like that for myself as well, and then we even go above and beyond that with the Café Femenino, also our decaf coffee, which I'm going to roast down for you as a Swiss Water Process.

[00:06:44] Ashley Hearon-Smith: All of our beans are Arabica.

[00:06:46] Mark Hearon: They're all Arabica beans [specialty coffee]. I get them currently from Guatemala and Peru. My decaf, my dark, and my espresso are Peruvian and my light blend is a Guatemalan, and my house blend is a 50/50 blend of the Guatemalan and the Peruvian together. Getting back to your question.

[00:07:07] Ashley Hearon-Smith: I'm his publicist, so I'm just going to be interjecting.

[00:07:13] Brett Barry: And this quiet Catskill General Store couldn't have asked for a more qualified publicist than Ashley Hearon-Smith, who brings loads of experience from her life in media production.

[00:07:25] Ashley Hearon-Smith: Welcome to "LifeStyled," where we're helping you make your dream aesthetic into reality for fashion to home decor, we've got it all over here. I'm Ashley Hearon-Smith. I do a bunch of different things. I'm a host, I'm a producer, I'm an actor. People ask me this question a lot and I never have a straightforward answer because it's just a lot of different things, but I do host "Momtourage Podcast." Hey guys, it's "Momtourage," the podcast about being a mom that thinks that most mom stuff is super boring, so we created our own posse. I'm Ashley.

[00:07:55] Keri Setaro: And I'm Keri, and we are ready to walk you down the red carpet of motherhood.

[00:08:00] Ashley Hearon-Smith: I also book, so I used to work in daytime [live daytime television], so I have a background in booking celebrity talent.

[00:08:08] Brett Barry: And so you've taken these skills and really kind of put some jet fuel behind the social media for this place.

[00:08:16] Ashley Hearon-Smith: This is totally different than our life ever was. I posted today... my dog barking at my parents next door neighbor, which is a horse. It's really... it's really nice and what a nice change of pace in the community is really welcoming to my family and their business and their passions and it's lovely.

[00:08:39] Brett Barry: When we come back, roasting, tasting, sandwiches, and more at the Charlotteville General Store.

[00:08:49] Campbell Brown: "Kaatscast" is brought to you by Ulster Savings Bank, an award-winning bank where community matters. Meet the friendly staff at their Phoenicia and Woodstock locations. Call (866) 440-0391 or visit them at ulstersavings.com. Member FDIC Equal Housing Lender. This episode is supported by Hanford Mills Museum. Explore the power of the past as knowledgeable staff guide you through the mill with demonstrations of the waterwheel, sawmill, and woodworking machines. For more information about scheduling a tour or about their 2024 exploration days, visit hanfordmills.org.

[00:09:27] Brett Barry: Back in Charlotteville, Mark walked me over to the gas-powered roasting machine ready for a fresh batch of beans.

[00:09:35] Mark Hearon: Well, I already warmed up the machine, so the most it may take is 7 to 9 minutes to roast, so... and what I'm going to roast for you today is our Swiss Water Processed Decaf, so since my coffees are also Fair Trade Organic and Swiss Water Processed, you're drinking some of the cleanest decaf coffee, and the way I roast it, many of the decaf people have tried it and said, "It tastes to them just like regular coffee." Alright, so I am going to open it up and let the beans fall into the drum. Close it up. Now, the beans are spinning inside the drum. It's almost like a rotating oven. It basically just spins it around, so that if it wasn't spinning around, the beans would burn instantly. This gives it... makes sure that they cook very evenly. The capacity of this is 22 kilograms. I usually roast half of that just because I like to give it room inside to roast evenly, so I roast enough for our store here and for our wholesale clients, and I probably roast [I would say] four to five times a week, and I usually do it in the morning before I open up the store. The nice thing about that is that many of the residents in the area pick up that smell of the roasted coffee, and it draws them in for the open of the store, so we get a lot of people going. I need coffee! I need coffee! What we wanted to do with this general store is bring a lot of local products from the area. There's so much talent in this area from the local beers and ciders that are created in this area to the cheeses and the milks, and it just goes on and on and on. Of course, there are some... a few national brands, like we have many people from Long Island that have moved up here and insist on Boar's Head meats and cheeses, so we have Boar's Head meats and cheeses, but then if they want something more local, they can grab a cheese from Harpersfield Cheese in Jefferson here or A2 Farmstead in Worcester who makes grass-fed butter and milk and cheese and Albano Meats in Jefferson and Clark's Milk in Delhi.

[00:11:49] Brett Barry: You even have a gas pump outside. I saw someone pull up with their pickup.

[00:11:51] Mark Hearon: Yes, yes, and it actually works! That... that is the funniest thing when I... I said, "I'm buying this general store," and I told people, and I said, "It even has a gas pump." They started laughing, and they said, "I can't believe it," and a lot of people don't even think that gas pump works just because it's so old looking. We're going to restore the front of the store to the way it used to look with the larger windows, the panes in the windows, and give it that old look and even paint outside and put a new sign up, so give it more curb appeal for sure.

[00:12:24] Ashley Hearon-Smith: One of the things he's not talking about is the amount of work that he's done, just not even in the coffee capacity, on the store overall is, I mean, this... this was unusable up here. He's really trying to make it a space where people can come and cup the coffee and have a real coffee experience, and even downstairs like it went from very dark and closed in and feeling unwelcoming to like bright and happy and like feeling like a lovely little store you want to come visit. He's... he's done a lot of work and it's... he's done a great job.

[00:13:00] Mark Hearon: I mean, to think that this building is...

[00:13:02] Ashley Hearon-Smith: 1872.

[00:13:03] Mark Hearon: 1872... 152-year-old is incredible, and keeping it alive and restoring it is, you know, we want people to appreciate what we've done here and come and see it, and I think when they go outside the way it looks right now, they might say, "Hmm, I don't know," but when they come inside, they get a whole different feeling when they walk inside, like, "Oh, this is nice!" The community has opened up to us as well, too. They just... they come in over and over now to support the store. They're... they're buying the coffee. They're buying the local products. They're... they've opened up to it, which is great. What you're hearing on the machine right now is the first crack of the beans, so the bean with the heat expands, so it's expanding right now, I'm popping. Normally, a coffee bean will pop two times. That's the first pop you're hearing, and then the second pop. It's getting very close now to where I need to drop it. I would say, "I have to get ready," so what I'm going to do is I'm going to turn on the sweeper, which turns in here, so that when they drop in, they'll start cooling off, and this cooler button right here is a vacuum that basically sucks all the heat out into one of those exhaust tubes and removes it. There I go. Ready? Hurry up!

[00:14:25] Brett Barry: Delayed by a few seconds for Ashley to ready her camera and for me to reposition the microphone, mark opens the roasting chamber and the beans cascade into a round cooling tray with a rotating arm.

[00:14:38] Mark Hearon: For a roaster, that's an incredible sound. You just love that cracking.

[00:14:42] Brett Barry: Leaving those beans to crackle and cool, we headed downstairs to try some coffee. This experience is a feast for the taste buds, not so much for the ears, so here's just the first of several tastings.

[00:14:54] Ashley Hearon-Smith: This is our lightest roast.

[00:14:56] Mark Hearon: So in the profile of this, you've got some chocolate. You've got some dried fruit in there. It's a nice, bright coffee. Great for morning, early afternoon. It'll really wake you up, but not in a bad way, and again, it finishes very smoothly and has some really nice flavor to it.

[00:15:12] Brett Barry: It's very good. What I don't usually like about lighter coffee is it's got a fruitiness to it, which isn't my thing.

[00:15:19] Mark Hearon: Okay.

[00:15:20] Brett Barry: But this doesn't.

[00:15:21] Mark Hearon: Okay.

[00:15:21] Brett Barry: Yeah.

[00:15:22] Mark Hearon: I... again, it's your own taste buds. I sometimes will pick up a little fruit in that one, but the chocolate dominates that, I think.

[00:15:30] Brett Barry: It's really good.

[00:15:31] Mark Hearon: Definitely.

[00:15:31] Brett Barry: And let's not forget about the food, like that famous Reuben, and a number of other sandwiches that are named for the locals who order them.

[00:15:38] Mark Hearon: The Big Dave is a guy down the road who works out of the city and has a summer house up here. Him and his wife love the Turkey Reuben because they want something... a little healthier option. The Richie is a guy who does a lot of work in the store and he loves the steak subs. We named it after him. The supervisor is our town supervisor, Harold Vroman. He loves liverwurst, so we named that after him as well, too, and then we... our Italian sub is the Tony Soprano.

[00:16:05] Brett Barry: And, of course, local groceries, fishing bait, and that very vintage gas pump. Is that gas pump open 24/7?

[00:16:13] Mark Hearon: No, and you actually... you actually have to stop it. If you tell us you want $20, you have to stop it on $20. This is an old pump.

[00:16:22] Brett Barry: Wow!

[00:16:22] Mark Hearon: We have milks. Clark's Milk in Delhi produces all this great milk, chocolate milk... chocolate milk is probably the second most popular item in the store. Grass-fed butter, you know, you name it. We have local meats from Albano Farms in Jefferson. We also carry a lot of local beers and ciders. There's a cidery in Gilboa called "Rockland Cider Works," and then we've got Awestruck, which is out of Sidney, and we've got Scrumpy Ewe, which is out of West Fulton, so many different variations. We carry Catskill Brewery out of Livingston Manor. We carry Ommegang, which is local to us, but now is a national brand. We do all Boar's Head meats and cheeses as well. We do breakfast sandwiches. We have a local bakery. They come up here three times a week and bring us fresh turnovers, cinnamon rolls, muffins, pies, you name it. In a nutshell, basically... anything you need locally you can stop by here and pick it up.

[00:17:19] Brett Barry: And a bait fridge in the corner.

[00:17:21] Mark Hearon: Yes, we sell bait! For all the little kids that like to fish in the stream back here, they love that. They love that.

[00:17:31] Brett Barry: Charlotteville General Store is open Monday through Saturday [8 to 5] and Sunday [9 to 3]. You can also catch up with them at the Pakatakan and Delhi Farmers Markets, and online at charlottevillegeneralstore.com. "Kaatscast: The Catskills Podcast" is a production of Silver Hollow Audio. Please subscribe wherever you get your podcasts, and if you're already a fan, please rate and review, so more listeners can find us. Shows are transcribed by J.K. Kazlauskas, and available at kaatscast.com, in addition to our brand new "Kaatscast" t-shirts. Available in a variety of colors and sizes. I'm Brett Barry. Thanks for tuning in, and we'll see you next time.

[00:18:18] Campbell Brown: "Kaatscast" is supported by a generous grant from the Nicholas J. Juried Family Foundation, and by listeners like you! If you'd like to make a donation, you can do so at kaatscast.com. Thank you!