♪ opening music ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ Hello, I'm Brittany Brackett and welcome to another tasty edition of Backroad Bites.

In this episode, we visit your favorite eateries in search of the perfect sandwich.

And of course, the key to any perfect sandwich is what the bread.

We'll sample a few of our favorites here at the Great Harvest Bread Company later in the show.

But first, let's head west to Edgefield, South Carolina, located on Courthouse Square is Park Row market number one.

Join us as we see how this eatery serves up a variety of items that satisfies whatever you're craving.

♪ <Jody Shaffer> I love our regulars that come in here every day.

They make this place work.

♪ Park Row Market Number 1 is located in Edgefield, South Carolina.

♪ This building was an old general store.

It was originated to the mid to late 1800s.

This street out here it was called Park Row at one time years ago.

Right now it's Courthouse Square.

And back then it was Park Row and that's where we came up for the name.

♪ We sell a lot of chicken salad.

I met my wife through the chicken salad and I got her to give me her phone number, if I promised her the recipe for my chicken salad, which I don't give out.

♪ I hand shred it.

We put a little celery in it.

it's got a little salt and pepper and it has a sweet kick to it.

I won't give you the entire recipe but that is how I got my wife to go out with me.

♪ If South Carolina was one dish, it would be our Nutty Turkey sandwich.

The Nutty Turkey is made with toast and bread and we put it together with - you have smoked turkey.

We also crush pecans or pecans, however you want to say it.

It goes on top and then we smother it with Monster cheese and we put a homemade cranberry mustard on top of that.

And it goes on toasted sourdough.

♪ When I did the menu, I probably was thinking of South Carolina my entire menu.

No matter what walk light comes in here, whether it's a group of construction workers, or little old ladies, I want everybody to be able to find something they can eat off the menu with, the chicken salad to the barbecue, to the nutty turkey to the spicy pig.

I mean I have such a variety of sandwiches, you know, and that's what it's for.

So somebody you can pick anything off of there, from homemade sandwiches to subs to the gourmet sandwiches to the soups and the salads.

♪ Everybody that walks in that door.

I want them to feel comfortable.

And just come on in sit down where you want to.

And that's why we yell it across the restaurant.

Come on in and have a seat wherever you can find one and we will take care of you.

They can go anywhere to eat.

We've got all kinds of places to eat around here.

And if they choose here that makes me happy.

That means we're doing something right.

♪ <Brittney> We are here at Great Harvest Bread Company in Greenville, South Carolina with owner Angela Zamora.

How are you?

>> I'm doing well.

<Brittney> So I know that you and your husband partnered in this endeavor.

So what is your combined if you don't mind telling us?

What is your combined experience making bread?

<Angela> Total?

Probably, about 41 years combined.

I have a degree in classical baking and pastry arts and he has a degree in artisan bread production.

We met running a French bakery in Nashville, Tennessee.

We met there 10 years ago-ish.

and we were both kind of in the middle of our careers.

And we moved around working at a bunch of different bakeries, and he worked here for about a year when the owner decided to retire and we had an opportunity to buy it and it's been in this community for 18 years.

So we couldn't say no.

<Brittney> What do you think?What flavor of bread makes the best sandwich?

<Angela> I think it depends what's going on the sandwich, our Ciabatta bread.

It's a nice chewy bread so it'll hold up to really wet ingredients like an Italian sandwich, but if you're making a grilled cheese you want something kind of soft, maybe grainy or Dakota bread will be really great for that.

<Brittney> So you not only have bread here, but you have sweets and a lot of other specialties.

But what makes bread so special to you?

<Angela> Bread is one of those things that is in so many diets around the world.

It's in so many different cultures, and it's so simple all breads start with flour, water, salt, and yeast.

And you can take that and manipulate it and make hundreds of different flavors.

♪ upbeat music ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ <Brittney> Now, is this burger really a burger?

That's a question you may ask yourself when you visit the Low Country's Burger Factory in Moncks Corner.

There you'll find a flavorful twist on an all time favorite.

♪ <Jessica Gourdine> Since I was, I think in my mother's womb, she said she used to eat White Castle burgers all the time when she was pregnant with me.

So I think that translated into my life with leading me down this path of birth.

My name is Jessica Gourdine, and this is the Burger Factory in Moncks Corner, South Carolina.

♪ I always wanted to open a restaurant.

I've been thinking about it since probably high school.

And I was trying to figure out what type of restaurant I wanted, didn't know if it was going to be full service.

I also thought about doing a breakfast type thing because I have to start every morning with breakfast.

But I decided on burgers because I love burgers.

I've been eating them all my life.

My mother says she ate them while she was pregnant with me.

So I think that helped me to move on to this area.

And I finally decided to do burgers.

And this is where we are now.

Burger factory is special, because we use all fresh ingredients.

We make our own sauces in house and make our own toppings in house.

We make our own turkey burger patties, black bean burger patties, everything is made fresh.

Our meat is ground fresh every day.

And I think that's something that you can tell is a difference in the flavor, the attention to detail that we put in all of our food.

So I think that's what makes us different.

That's why we stand out.

My favorite is the classic, which is just a simple burger with lettuce, tomatoes, grilled onions and our factory sauce.

So that's my favorite, but my second favorite close second is the Holy Guac, which is we make our guacamole in house jalapeno cheese and bacon and Chipotle ranch sauce.

And that's my favorite.

And Carolina almost did not make it to this menu.

I had it on the food truck, but I wasn't sure how I would produce it here for a larger amount of people.

So we found a good producer of pork pork, so that's the one thing that we don't make it house.

So the pulled pork we get from a local supplier here and we use pulled pork.

We make our own barbecue sauce.

We have coleslaw, and cheddar cheese.

♪ That if you want a good nap, you take that one and you will be sleeping for a few hours, that'll put you to sleep.

Some people like the dirty fries, more than they like the burgers.

So, the dirty fries is cheese bacon.

We make our own ranch, hot sauce and green onions.

It sounds simple.

But when you put it all together, it's, people love it.

We have some of the best customers.

They love coming here.

They talk about this being their best burger.

Every time they come, they try something new when they came the last time they said this was their favorite burger, then they get a new burger now that's their favorite burger, they can build their own with all the toppings that we have.

So they're, you know, people's imaginations run very wild when they're making burgers, but they love it.

They love bringing their kids here because the kids enjoy the different things that we have for them.

So the customers are great.

When our customers leave here, I want them to think that they just had the best burger that they ever had in their life.

We've been told that more than once.

So, so far so good.

<Brittney> At the foothills of the Blue Ridge Mountains is the town of Travelers Rest, named aptly as it served as a stopover for past travelers.

Upcountry Provisions is a modern refuge for visitors away from the hustle and bustle of Main Street.

In this segment, we discover how Upcountry Provisions uses locally grown ingredients that showcases the unique flavors of this corner of South Carolina.

♪ <Cheryl> When we first opened, there was a lady that came in one day and saw me with my new baby and she said I keep coming to your restaurant because I want to see this girl go to college ♪ Me and my husband Steven Kraus opened Upcountry Provisions together in 2012.

The throwback really for our restaurant is to an earlier time when things were easy when people took trips up to the mountains, and when people got together over food.

And so the idea of Upcountry Provisions is that you drive up from the city, you get your provisions on the way to spend a day with your family in the mountains.

We really draw people in by kind of looking at the surroundings, we're off Main Street, we're kind of tucked away.

Our goal is to create a food forest here in T.R.

where people can walk around and see food and learn to identify it.

One thing that we grow in our garden to use on our sandwiches is the basil.

But we love a tomato sandwich with our fresh garden veggies.

We pulled the basil in, we pull in local tomatoes on our fresh brioche.

And to us that is the signature southern dish.

If South Carolina was a dish, it would be a tomato sandwich.

We have really hung our hats on that too.

We come out every year for the tomato sandwich contest.

♪ Food is something that brings us together.

Everything that we can get from our neighbors, we do.

I think about the food and the dry goods.

And even our T shirts are printed locally.

Everything that we have, we try and get from a neighbor, the bakery, we actually have locally made chocolates that we use for our chocolate croissants.

There's two desserts that we're most famous for, our peanut butter oatmeal cookie that's called our peanut butter Diablo.

And then our triple chocolate brownie and the triple chocolate brownie is a nod to my aunt's mother, Joanna Dipel.

That was a recipe that I grew up with.

And then my aunt shared when we open the restaurant, it was my favorite brownie recipe as a kid.

♪ Before COVID, only about 18% of our business was takeout.

And then almost overnight 100% of our business had to go to take out.

So we started making changes right away.

Some of the things that we've done are try and accommodate our customers from their car, taking orders out to the car.

And we want to do take and bake something that people can take home, making their comfort of their homes, it's a way that customers can take our cinnamon rolls home, our pizza concept home or cookie dough home.

Our idea was to reduce the trips that you had to make to the store.

So this might save you from having to go out twice a day, you could get your breakfast, while you're also here picking up your dinner.

We also offered meals for five different families throughout the community during this time to allow them to have other kinds of food choices, while they were limited in certain areas.

We've been able to help people we've also seen people continue to come and show us love every day.

Someone came in right after this started and said you know, I really feel like as a community member, we get to decide what restaurants stay open right now.

I believe that statement.

♪ We really know that without our community, we just have a hobby and without our customers, we really don't have the means to go on.

I really didn't realize until COVID happened how much we love the experience of watching someone enjoy their food, because that went away.

And so now that people are here again and we're the first day that we got to see someone enjoy their food, I mean I'm getting chills thinking about it and was like yes, this is why we're doing it.

♪ <Brittney> For a quick trip back in time, grab a tasty chicken salad sandwich and have a seat at the lunch counter of Sumter Cut Rate.

Founded in 1935.

This Diner is a throwback to the drugstore soda fountain era.

♪ <Todd Touchberry> Sumter's been my home since I was born.

It's just this is home for me.

♪ >> I'm Todd Touchberry.

I'm the general manager of Sumter Cut Rate.

We are South Carolina's second oldest continually operating restaurant.

We're in downtown Sumter, South Carolina at 32 South Main Street.

♪ Sumter Cut Rate is in it's original location.

It started in 1935.

It was just a straight counter until the middle 60s and then they put in the U-shaped counter because business was so good.

I think a couple of our unique features are we're still inside of a pharmacy.

There's virtually no change since 1935.

We're going on 76 years, a little over 76 years now.

You will see every race, color, creed, walk of life come through the door and sit side by side and carry on conversations like you'll never see in anywhere else in South Carolina.

♪ I think one thing that brings locals in here on a daily and weekly basis and I think what brings people that have moved away from town, back here as soon as they come back into town is, there's a sense of camaraderie.

We try to keep different things on display that make people feel like they're at home.

We try to cook what they grew up on.

Here in South Carolina, it's a little bit different culture than say different parts of the country.

♪ We serve old school, what we call number one and number two, breakfast specials with eggs, your choice of meat: bacon or sausage, grits, toast.

We have hand pattied hamburgers We have club sandwiches, and, of course, our chicken salad is what we're most famous for.

If South Carolina was one dish it would obviously be our chicken salad.

It is our most popular seller, and we go through anywhere from 40 to 120 pounds of chicken a day and we have literally shipped it all over the country.

It's made with love.

♪ I think one of our most asked questions is What's the Whirly Ding?

While the name proceeds my time being here, it's basically a bed of lettuce with either one or two scoops of chicken salad, some tomato wedges and a pickle.

One thing that I tried to bring to the table when I took this over, 12 - 13 years ago was the local history being on display as much as possible and I have yearbook collection that goes all the way back to 1920, which was the first time they had yearbooks in Sumter.

Everything that's on display here has a tie somewhere or another to Sumter.

I've always been a history buff.

I think that's one thing that brings people back to a time of days gone by, simpler times.

I think that's what people want sometimes.

♪ Any little bit that I can personally hold on to and bring around and keep for the next generation and for other people to come back and enjoy, I think that's really important.

♪ I think Sumter is a good place to visit or even make home.

We're so close to everything.

We're literally right in the middle between the mountains and the ocean.

Sumter, obviously, has a lot of southern hospitality in it being in the middle of the south, being so close to the ocean, hour and a half, two hours from the ocean, hour and a half, two hours to the mountains, you can enjoy everything that you could possibly imagine here.

It's really an interesting place to live.

♪ <Brittney> We're here in the bakery at Great Harvest Bread Company with the other half of the masterful duo and owners of this amazing place.

Keith, tell me why you got into bread.

What's your loaf of bread all about?

<Keith> Ah, my first year in culinary school I got a internship at a bakery in Evanston, Illinois and the guy was a master baker and ended up winning the gold medal for Coupe du Monde de la Boulangerie.

So the entire time he was training for that, I was making his bread for the farmers markets and so ever since then, I've been doing bread.

<Brittney> It takes a lot of hours to make this bread.

What time you get up in the morning?

<Keith> Midnight, to two, depending on when I put my kid in bed.

But I've been doing it for 20 years.

So kind of used to going to bed late and waking up early.

<Brittney> Yeah.

And it shows your love for what you do, because to be you know, kneading, get it?

See what I did there?

Needing the love for bread and coming in every day to make how many loaves?

I mean, the massive volume of what you guys do, How many loaves, do you make a day?

<Keith> Here we make about I'd say two to 300 loaves a day.

Two to 300 loaves a day here.

Sounds like a lot to a lot of people, but <Brittney> Yeah.

>> It's really not much to me and what I'm used to.

<Brittney> Before we go I also want to know I asked Angela before, I want to know what your favorite flavor of bread is for a sandwich.

What is the best bread that you think should be made with the sandwich?

<Keith> Well depends on what kind of sandwich.

Obviously marble rye, you know for a Reuben, but The best bread that we make.

First that I like to make a sandwich on is this Ciabatta that's behind us.

<Brittney> Not only did Angela make me hungry, but you totally made me hungry all over again.

We've been here with Keith at the Great Harvest Bread Company.

Let's see more of what's done in this amazing place.

♪ upbeat music ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ <Brittney> Finally we find big flavor in Little Mountain.

Born from an antique store full of hungry shoppers, the Little Mountain Antique Mall and Cafe serves up an eclectic menu filled with tasty treats.

Let's do a little antiquing while we grab a bite at this unique eatery.

♪ <woman> We have a lot of regular customers that come in and we know when their birthdays are.

We know where their kids are.

We know how they're feeling.

They're in a bad mood, you can tell by the time you look at them.

It's like hey, how about a free dessert today?

♪ <Karen> The cafe opened in October of 2012.

And we are located in the little mountain Antique Mall on Main Street in Little Mountain, South Carolina.

♪ In 2007, we bought the building.

So, we just continued to grow and continue to build.

And we have a lot of billboards on the interstate and got a lot of people coming in that were traveling.

And they were like where do we eat?

♪ Well, there was no place in Little Mountain to eat.

If we send them to Prosperity, or we send them to Chapin, which five - seven miles away in either direction.

We didn't get them back.

I was adamantly opposed to doing food service but my husband thought it was a great idea.

So we did it.

And what was intended to be just a sandwich counter may be some hot dogs grab and go kind of food has since turned into 48 seats open seven days a week, only closed Christmas and Thanksgiving.

♪ Our menu is very eclectic.

Don't have a fryer.

We don't fry anything.

We can always tell if someone's been here for the first time and they order say the southern PB and J and fries.

It's like never been here before, have you?

(laughs) We don't have - We don't have french fries.

We do a lot of salads.

We do quiche.

We in the summer when the tomatoes are really ripe and we can get local tomatoes we do tomato pie.

It's just a really wide variety of a food that you don't expect to find in the lower level of an antique mall, in Little Mountain, South Carolina.

♪ I love it when people are shocked.

(laughs) It's like the best rush ever.

♪ If South Carolina was one dish, it would be our southern PB and J sandwich.

♪ The southern PB and J is exactly like South Carolina.

It is hot.

It is spicy.

It's a little bit sweet.

Just a touch on the tenacious side.

It is our homemade pimento cheese with pecan smoked bacon, our custom made raspberry jalapeno jam, and it is grilled on sourdough bread.

And it is the most amazing thing you will ever eat.

♪ We're so much more than a cafe.

You know, it's hard to explain to somebody that's never been here before or that doesn't have you know, any interest in antiques.

♪ We have customers who will get here at 10:30 right after the store opens.

And I mean they'll tell you when they walk in the front door.

We're here we're gonna shop.

We're gonna go eat.

We're gonna shop some more and then we'll go back downstairs before three o'clock so we can get dessert and they will literally spend the entire day here.

And it's, it's awesome.

They have a great time and we love seeing them have lunch and walk around, burn off a few calories and then come back and get some coconut cake or some key lime pie and then you know, go back and shop.

<Brittney> For more tasty tidbits from around the state.

Please visit our website at scetv.org, and don't forget to follow us on social media, Facebook, Twitter and Instagram.

For Backroad Bites.

I'm Brittney Brackett, thanks for watching.

♪ closing music ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ >> This is literally the most outdoorsy I have ever been in my life.

♪ [gun fire] [shrieks and laughs] ♪ [shrieks] ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ >> This is our town.

>> This is our town.

♪ ♪ >> Salutations, and welcome everyone.

♪ ♪ >> Food is Southern culture.

♪ >> When I think of Southern cuisine, I think it's just filled with flavor filled with love.

♪ >> If South Carolina was a dish, it would be a tomato sandwich.

We have really hung our hats on that too.

♪ [laughter] ♪