While growing up in the New River Valley of southwest Virginia, Floyd was a nearby, quintessential cross-roads, rural town. Sitting a few miles north of the Blue Ridge Parkway, it served largely as the service center for the agricultural areas that still surround it. It had a bank, two classic general stores, the Blue Ridge Café and the usual collection of small professional offices with insurance agents, lawyers and doctors. One summer during high school, I rolled in and out of Floyd while working the area’s tree fields, shaping Christmas trees by hand with a machete. Tree after tree after tree after tree. . . . . Along with tree sap, I collected the worst case of poison ivy ever and a pretty good laceration to the shin.
Floyd still has the only stop light in the County. The Blue Ridge Café still serves up great southern diner food. But now Floyd is a fascinating collision of rural southwest Virginia and love-your-mother-earth society. There’s new investment, too. The Floyd Country Store continues to host the Friday Night Jamboree where hundreds turn out to flatfoot to live bluegrass music and visit with neighbors over ice cream and the store’s collection of Carhartt clothing, bluegrass CDs and enamelware. Stop in and you’ll be transported back to a time when such events formed the social fabric of the community (and still do). It’s a major venue along The Crooked Road, Virginia’s Heritage Music Trail along with the Carter Family Fold, the Ralph Stanley Museum and others.
Over the past fifteen years, the Floyd area has attracted a significant artist presence. Galleries in town display numerous locally made craft items and sustainably produced agricultural products are easy to find. A new wine tasting room has popped up featuring area wines and cider and Nancy’s Candy Co. has opened an outlet store. That’s a bit of a misnomer given there’s nothing “outlet” about the huge selection of tasty treasures. There’s good food, too. The menu at Oddfella’s Cantina is as pleasantly eclectic as its curiously mismatched tables and chairs. We were treated to a live Celtic music jam session as we dined on asparagus pastry puff appetizers, mahi mahi tuna specials and chicken and rice chimichangas.
There’s beer, too, though not without a struggle. The nearby Shooting Creek Farm Brewery faced significant opposition from some in the community who worried that a new tap room in the rural county would lead to hazardous driving, increased traffic, noise and sinful drinking. As a compromise, Shooting Creek agreed not to serve beer on premises. I tried some over dinner at Oddfella’s Cantina and picked up several bottles as my introduction to Virginia brews. Only a year and change into their brewing, it’s clear Shooting Creek isn’t afraid to toss the Reinheitsgebot off to the side and get inventive with their beers. More on that in Part II.
For more on Floyd, check out this Roanoke Times article written by a reporter who was apparently cruising the town the same night I was there.
