Crowell-Berryhill Store
(ca. 1897)
The oldest surviving commercial building in uptown Charlotte, the Crowell-Berryhill Store is also center city’s only remaining 19th-century grocery store.
401 W. 9th St., Charlotte, NC 28202
Opened in 1897 as a branch of the Star Mills Grocery Company, the Crowell-Berryhill Store is both the oldest commercial building and the only extant turn-of-the-century grocery store in Charlotte’s center city. Within months of opening the store at the corner of 9th and Pine Streets, Star Mills – a local company that produced grits and mill feed – sold the building to M. L. Alexander, who in turn sold the store to William M. Crowell in July 1898. Crowell had previously owned a grocery just one block away on North Pine Street. In December 1899, Crowell sold his new store at 9th and Pine to Andrew Monroe Beattie, who already owned another grocery store on East 7th Street. Beattie continued to operate his original 7th Street store and brought Charlotte native Ernest Wiley Berryhill (1865-1931) on board to operate his 9th and Pine store. Berryhill in turn bought the 9th and Pine store outright from Beattie in 1907.
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Before purchasing the store, Berryhill and his brother-in-law George H. Newcomb founded the Berryhill and Newcomb Bellows Factory. Having married George’s sister Gussie A. Newcomb (1872-1956) in 1893, the Berryhills moved that same year into the extant house now known as the Berryhill House, located diagonally across the intersection of 9th and Pine from the store. Strategically situated in the midst of the then-mostly residential Fourth Ward, the Berryhill Store was a neighborhood fixture for many years, operating on a charge and delivery basis. Ernest Berryhill was well known as a gracious and considerate man; on occasion, customers unable to pay their outstanding bill received a free basket of groceries. He operated the store with the assistance of his wife and Amzie Roseman (1895-1943), a local Black World War I veteran and boxer who worked with the Berryhill family for more than 30 years, first in the store and later with Ernest and Gussie’s only child John Newcomb Berryhill (1894-1979). In addition to the store, Ernest Berryhill also maintained rental property in the area and was a founder and director of the Citizens Savings Bank.
Following Ernest’s death in 1931, Gussie Berryhill sold the business to Benjamin Gray, who had previously worked part-time in the store. Gray’s failing health forced him to relinquish the store in 1932, after which Gussie convinced her son John (then a longtime executive with the DuPont Company) to return to Charlotte to look after the store and the family's real estate interests. John sold the business in 1941 but retained ownership of the property until 1975. During that period, the building housed two different grocery businesses, the Charlotte Paint and Body Supply Company, the self-service Ninth Street and Pine Laundry Center, and a gym for English wrestler Ramon Daniel “Tinker Todd” Napolitan (1928-2013) before being renovated in the early 1980s to become a neighborhood store and deli, and later a restaurant and tavern.