It all began on accident. On the morning of Monday, June 15th of 2020, a serious accident threatened the life of then 22-year-old Chance Hargrave.
During his recovery, his dad Kenny says Chance got pretty good at smoking meats.
He was living here in town and all he did while he was recovering from his wreck was sit there and smoke meat. We’d bought him a smoker for Christmas and that’s all he did was cook. He did that for about 3 months and his food was really good. CoViD was going on and I told him, son why don’t we just buy you a big smoker and just cook here and serve people because all the restaurants are closed and we thought this’d be a good idea.
The father/son would fail to agree on who was purchasing said smoker. Fast forward and a discussion between the elder Hargrave and Rick Barbre who owned the grocery store that’s been known over the years as Pee Wee’s, Mear’s, and 5th Street resulted in a new opportunity.
He says ‘you wanna buy this place?’ and I said oh no, I don’t know. So we kind of looked into it and decided we would. I asked Chance if he’d run it and cook meat for us. So we did. We purchased it. We’ve had a lot of struggles with the new business. It’s been very interesting. Some of the best things about it…I get to work with my son everyday. Some of the worst things about it…I get to work with my son every day (laughter)…but for me, it’s great at night, I come in there and my grandkids are running around in there and it’s all fun.
In September of 2023, they decided to take the show on the road by adding the food truck and they’re adding catering options. Hargrave says his interest in the restaurant side of the business was born way back when he was 13 working at Two Tony’s. He worked there for about 7 years and says he learned directly from Ted Smith who taught him a lot about working with customers. They’ve attended several festivals including Corn Day, Popcorn Day, the White County Fair and set up at events like the Chamber of Commerce Handbag Binga fundraiser. 5th Street’s Food Truck can serve a big crowd too.
We can serve several people off it. We cook at the store, smoke all the food there, load the truck and take it and go. We can roughly feed about, if I know I’m going to, about 500 people and that’s meat and 2-3 sides.
Hargrave says the community has been fantastic and even folks who could be seen as competitors came to his aid to lend support.
Word was starting to get out [about Hargrave buying 5th Street Market] so I went out to Ron [Kingery, owner of Little Giant Grocery] and sat out there talking to him, joking around. I looked at him and said, Ron I’ve done something and I hope it doesn’t come between us as friends. You’re a very valuable friend to me. He said what have you done Kenny…I said I bought 5th Street Market. The first words out of his mouth were Congratulations. The next words were if you need anything, you call me. That just goes to show what a great community we live in. After word got out, my wife Teresa and I were out in Evansville and ran into Doug and Susan Maier. Doug came up, congratulated me and said if you need any information…anything I can do to help you, call me, we’re here for you. And then Mark Bayley sees Teresa and he says you tell Kenny if he needs any help call us, we’ll help him. This is a great community. Most people would think of these people here as your competition. They might be, but they’re also my friends and also willing to help. This is a great community to live in and I’m very proud to be here.
Learn much more about the grocery store and the food truck including where you can find it on their facebook page at https://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=100078226148130
Coming up next week at Carmi Kiwanis, the club will welcome Fine Arts Boosters representatives Keith Jackson and Anna York.
