Iconic Jackson’s Kitchen in Clover to get new owner

Charlotte and Dick Jackson, owners of Clover’s iconic Jackson’s Kitchen, just couldn’t find a way to slow down.

The business that had been in Dick’s family for 58 years, first as a grocery and now as a catering and deli business and a home-style lunch spot, was booming. The Jacksons were always busy serving weekday lunches and catering across the region.

But Dick, 68, and Charlotte, who turns 66 this week, were ready to retire. They wanted to spend more time with with friends and family and enjoy some traveling. Yet the business didn’t stop.

It seemed unlikely the couple would find a buyer. So the Jacksons planned to shut down and walk away from the business Dick’s father and uncle had bought around 1957.

Then the Jacksons met Mike Barrett, a Vermont native and recent York County transplant eager to take on a hometown eatery.

Barrett, 51, said he wants to buy the Jacksons’ business and take it into the future without changing a thing.

It was a dream come true for both the Jacksons and Barrett, who said he’s anxious to continue in the tradition of Jackson’s Kitchen.

“I cannot tell you how incredible this is,” Charlotte said of the turn of events. “We want to pinch ourselves, that it’s real.”

Dick and Charlotte Jackson plan to retire April 30. Barrett said he will take over the business with his son, Joshua, on May 1, after a month of working under the Jacksons to learn the ropes.

The Jacksons said they are selling everything: the business name, building, equipment and, yes, the recipes for their popular bread, cold salads and other foods.

“He will continue to make the sourdough bread, the pimento cheese, the chicken salad, everything that we are known for,” Charlotte Jackson said.

Barrett said his wife Stephanie’s family is from Clover. The couple had moved to Indian Land four years ago, and just this month to Lake Wylie. Barrett learned a couple months ago that the Jacksons planned to retire from Jim Sherrill, a part-time Jackson’s employee.

Barrett said he immediately called Dick Jackson to ask about buying the business. “The family, small-town feel is me,” he said. “My intent is not to change a thing.”

Barrett said he’s been self-employed for 31 years, recently with a granite business. His son, Joshua, 25, has experience in the restaurant business.

“Its huge shoes to fill, for sure,” Barrett said. “But Dick’s just a phone call away, and he’s right around the corner. The staff is staying, which is huge.”

Dick Jackson said that, from the first time he and Charlotte sat down to discuss the sale with Barrett and his wife, “we knew it was going to happen.”

“It seemed like it was meant to be,” said Charlotte Jackson.

Dick Jackson said that 90 percent of the business is catering in York, Gaston and sometimes Mecklenburg County, while the rest is the lunch business. He said Jackson’s caters for corporate clients, civic groups, churches, fire departments, government agencies and other groups.

The lunch business, from 11 a.m.-2 p.m. Monday to Friday, has a loyal following of locals, many of whom have been friends of the Jacksons since childhood.

Louise Jackson, 78, a “distant relative” of the Jacksons, said she eats something from Jackson’s Kitchen every day. “I like the atmosphere and the food. It’s just a good place to be,” she said.

Ron Wallace, 67, said he grew up with Dick Jackson, and started coming to Jackson’s at the age of 5 or 6, when it was a grocery store. “The food is great. The conversation is great,” he said.

But Jackson’s also draws its share of out-of-town diners.

“On an average day, I see 10 people here I’ve never laid eyes on before,” said Darrell Falls, 68, a Clover native who said he eats there two or three times a week. “So word of mouth gets around.”

Dick Jackson said the business, at 304 N. Main St., has a long history in Clover.

The original business, which he said probably began in the early 1920s, was a neighborhood grocery store owned by E.L. Adams.

Jackson’s uncle, George M. Jackson, began working for Adams in the early 1920s, and Jackson’s father, Campbell Jackson, started in 1931. Campbell served in the Army for four years, and came back to work for Adams in 1945.

Adams wanted to retied in 1946 and offered to sell the business to Campbell and George Jackson. But in the aftermath of the Great Depression, Jackson said, his father and uncle didn’t want the risk of borrowing money. So Adams sold the business to S.G. Neil, who employed the Jackson brothers for the next decade.

Neil later opened an appliance store, and in 1957 he sold the grocery business to Campbell and George Jackson, and it became Jackson Bros. Grocery.

Jackson said his father had been a cook in the Army, and was asked to cater meals for the deacons at Clover Presbyterian Church.

Later, the American Thread Co. began a birthday dinner program for employees, and Campbell Jackson catered that, too.

“That’s how we got started,” Dick Jackson said of the catering arm of the business. “We got a reputation for quality food service., and that continued for a long time.”

Dick started working the grocery store in 1957, when he was in seventh grade, stocking shelves and making deliveries. The catering work was in its infancy, but the grocery store was viable.

Dick Jackson later went to Erskine College then returned to Clover, where he taught science and math at junior high. He married Charlotte, his high school sweetheart, who also taught in Clover.

He served in the National Guard, where he also was a cook, then returned to Clover and worked as a training director for American Thread Co.

During a 1975 recession, Dick Jackson was laid off from American Thread with about 250 others. His father had been briefly hospitalized, so Dick decided to help his uncle George at the grocery store for a few days.

“Those few days I was going to help my uncle wound up being 35 years,” he said.

Dick Jackson said Charlotte taught school for nine years and wanted to make a career change. She was interested in opportunities at the family business, so the couple began making pimento cheese and selling it wholesale.

But they kept getting requests for catering.

“Finally, we said we need to focus on that and see what we can do with it,” Dick Jackson said. “We started buying better, large equipment. And we started getting requests from all over.”

George Jackson died in 1993, and Campbell Jackson in 1995, the year Dick and Charlotte expanded the building for catering. They phased out the grocery business, put in some tables and began serving a weekday lunch.

Now, Dick said, he and his wife are content to retire and hand the business off, though he said they will miss the people.

“We’ve been blessed with a lot of good customers who have kept us in business and been great in the store and in catering,” Dick Jackson said.

The Jacksons won’t be far away. Charlotte, who developed the recipes used by the catering and lunch business, said she has offered to continue to work on perfecting recipes for Barrett, and Dick Jackson said he’ll be on hand if Barrett has questions.

And, of course, they said, the food will bring them back. Charlotte said she has rarely grocery shopped and cooked at home, because the couple ate the food they made for customers. “I think we’ll be here every week to eat,” Charlotte said.

Dick agreed: “We won’t want to cook at home.”

This story was originally published March 24, 2015 at 12:50 PM with the headline "Iconic Jackson’s Kitchen in Clover to get new owner."