A General Store with Local Provisions

An old-fashioned name for a grocery story fits C & R Mercantile to a T (C & R are tributes to her dogs). Owner Denise Nehez’s old-timey touches include rustic wooden shelves, bins and boxes to display her wares, plus tall brushed tin buckets full of not-your-usual flower-store bouquets, such as locally grown autumnal dahlias, rover mums, green hydrangea, sunflowers and green hypericum. Nehez moved to Rhode Island in 2002, worked in several Bristol restaurants and made the leap three years ago to open her own shop. “I love having my own business and meeting great people,” she says. She’s a one-woman show, but she listens carefully to every customer’s request, and she’s very dedicated to carrying local foods and products, including Nice Catch’s smoked bluefish pâté, Baffoni chicken, Danielle salami, Aquidneck Farms beef, Sacred Cow granola, Coggeshall Farm honey, Virginia & Spanish peanut butter, Beth Bakes gluten-free crackers, Z pita chips and Kane’s Kitchen salsa. She carries a bit of fresh produce, some herbs in pots and specialty items from afar, if they are “quality foods.”

219 High St., Bristol. 401.297.8199; Facebook.com/CRMercantile/