WSMV Channel 4 Bulger's Beat: Local favorite grocery soon forced to close

Bulger's Beat: Local favorite grocery soon forced to close

Posted: Updated:
GALLATIN, TN (WSMV) -

If you have lived anywhere near Gallatin in the last 46 years and were ever in the market for steaks and pork chops, you probably have visited Terry's Grocery.

The old country store that dotted the backroads of Tennessee is now on the chopping block and is soon to become extinct.

Times change, modernization moves in, and what was once relevant now leans more toward nostalgic.

But there are still exceptions.

Weyman Terry's place is an exception.

Gallatin kids who once came to his store for his sandwiches are now grown men.

They are big on baloney, cheese and loyalty.

"You get any kind of sandwich you want. Good people have been here forever," one customer said.

And good people means Weyman Terry, who is now 86 years old with 46 years of straightforward service.

"Treat people right, they'll treat you right. Give them what they pay for," he said.

Terry does 600 sit-ups a day, and he's still as thin as he was as an 18-year-old serving his country at the Battle of the Bulge.

Now is no time for the rocking chair.

"If you quit and sit down, you won't last too long," he said.

But retirement is coming, if not by choice. A new county road bypass means Terry's Grocery will be torn down.

It will be Gallatin's loss.

"(There will) be no more stores with personality to it. They're just all gone. It's the only one I can think of anywhere now," Terry said.

There are just about months left until they close up and say good-bye.

But until then, Terry is still serving a last chance for a sandwich, and if you're lucky, the flip you'll never forget.

Weyman only does his trademark sandwich toss to his regular customers that have been coming to see him for years.

Many of those regulars are cattle farmers and factory workers from around Sumner County.

Copyright WSMV 2012 (Meredith Corporation). All rights reserved.