1940’s Building Gets New Lease on Life in Novice
by Kelly Sue Bachen
kbachen@taylortel.net
When the grand opening of the Novice Grocery & Café was held on Dec. 8, 2006, it was the desire of
the owner, Cheryl Thompson, to bring some life back to the store that had served the community
since the 1940s.
Quinton Burroughs and his wife, Beulah, became the first proprietors of the Novice Grocery when, in
1948, they bought an old army barracks from Camp Barkeley in Abilene and moved it to the area to
serve as a store. Their son, Phil Burroughs, a 1951 graduate of Novice High School, says that during
the ‘40s and ‘50s his parents owned two stores in Novice, as well as one in both Lawn and Silver
Valley. Of the Novice Grocery, he recalls that there was one big room for groceries, several counters,
a meat market, and a feed room in the back, although there was not a café at that time. He says his
father sold on credit and traveled to Coleman regularly to buy inventory from either Radford or
Wooten Wholesale Grocers. His mother was a schoolteacher and he often worked in the store after
school where, he admits somewhat sheepishly, that he would sometimes sell cigarettes to the local
kids.
The Burroughs’ owned the store until 1959 and since then it has had over a dozen owners, including
the Brice Farmer family, James Sadler, Jr., and Jerald and Nena Wilson, who ran the store and café
during the oil boom of the early to mid-1980s, when it was well-known to area oilfield workers as the
“Novice Petroleum Club”. Martha Smith and Jim and Eula Culwell were also proprietors, with the latter
being the owners of the store when it was last in business in the mid-1990s.
The current owner, Cheryl Thompson, who is originally from Eastland, moved to Novice in 2003 so
that her daughter, Rayme, now an eighth-grader at Novice Junior High, could attend a small, rural
school. Although Cheryl loved the school and the community, she soon discovered that the lack of
any type of store in the area was a real inconvenience. Finding herself driving the forty-mile round
trip to Coleman frequently, just to grab a gallon of milk or some other necessity, she found herself
thinking, “I’d give $5.00 for this (gallon of milk) just to not have to go to town.” She began inquiring
about property in the area with the thought of opening a store that might meet the needs of the
community. On Aug. 8, 2006, with the support and encouragement of her daughter, her boyfriend,
Stacy Jennings, and her parents, Ed and Gayle Thompson of Eastland, she purchased the old Novice
Grocery building and began working on the renovation that same day. Over the next four months,
amongst other innumerable tasks, they tore out and replaced the interior walls and ceiling, installed all
new plumbing, and removed all eight layers of shingles from the roof, replacing it with a metal surface;
the only project that they wisely left to the professionals was the electrical work.
As the opening date of Dec. 8th drew closer, Cheryl says she began to get pretty excited - and then
she got scared! Unsure of the number of people would might stop by that first day, she recruited her
Mom and Dad, as well as her son, Ryan Manning, who lives in Cisco and is the manager of several
Sonic restaurants, to help her on the first day of business. As it turned out, opening day was very
busy, with a steady stream of customers and well-wishers stopping by all throughout the day.
Breakfast was a popular meal that first day, and has continued to be, especially on weekends, with
breakfast burritos being a “hot” item among area workers. A fresh pot of coffee is always brewing,
ready for the locals and old-timers, who like to stop in to catch up on the latest news. Hamburgers
have been a best-seller at lunch and dinner, and the café offers a wide variety of other menu choices
ranging from barbeque sandwiches to grilled chicken salad. One of the regular “coffee drinkers”, 77-
year-old Ralph Kincaid of Novice, says he made his first visit to the store when he was 12 or 13 and
recalls that the neighborhood kids used to play catch out in front of the store quite often.
Besides serving delicious meals, the Novice Grocery and Café stocks many of the staple items that
Cheryl had found herself needing in the past. Milk, baking powder, diapers, cereal, and canned
goods fill the shelves and refrigerators, along with snack foods such as chips, sodas, and candy
bars. Chewing tobacco, snuff, and cigarettes, as well as current copies of the “Abilene Reporter-
News” and the “Coleman Chronicle and Democrat-Voice” round out the inventory. Feed and deer
corn may also be added in the future, depending on the needs of hunters and community members.
Cheryl says that visiting with the people that frequent the store is the most enjoyable part of her job,
and with store hours being from 7 - 6, Monday through Friday and 10 - 2 on weekends, she has
plenty of opportunity to visit. The business continues to be a family affair as Cheryl’s daughter,
Rayme, also works in the store when she’s not busy with sports, homework, or church activities.
A diverse group of people make regular stops at the only store and café in Novice, and with a
clientele consisting of area ranchers, oilfield workers, hunters, travelers, and just plain “folks”, it
seems that Cheryl Thompson has indeed succeeded in her goal of bringing some life back to the old
Novice Grocery.