Wigwam General Store Is a Part of the Family
Molly Slaughter grew up in the Horse Cave general store she now co-owns and operates. In fact, had there been no Wigwam General Store, there might have been no Molly.
Her mom, Margaret Stinson, began working at the full-service restaurant and store just a few years after it opened in 1982 at the site of the former Wigwam Village general store. There she met Molly’s father, Mike Slaughter, a regular customer who became her husband.
In the following years, when Mike was on the road as a member of the Burley Tobacco Co-Op Board, Margaret would take Molly along to the store with her when she went to work at 6 a.m.
“When I was 6 or so, I would just sleep under the counter till they would send me to school with whoever came by for breakfast that morning,” Molly says. “Sometimes it was the principal, sometimes it was the preacher who took his granddaughter to school.”
By the time she was in middle school, Molly was working there herself, operating the ice cream machine and whatever else needed tending. On January 1, 2016, the Slaughters solidified the store’s place in their family, buying it from original owners, Larry and Sue Jewell.
All the Favorites
Wigwam General Store customers know they can count on all their favourite Southern breakfast classics made to order beginning at 6 a.m. daily.
“We’ve got all the little kids hooked on our biscuits and gravy, so we sell lots and lots of our homemade gravy,” Molly says.
In addition to the full lunch menu, there are daily specials and the popular fish fry on Fridays. Molly buys her fresh-ground hamburger from Phillips Family Market IGA in Hiseville, and her local produce comes from Horse Cave’s Dennison’s Market.
No matter what customers order to eat, they usually wash it down with the tastiest tea in town. “Our sweet tea has a reputation all its own,” Molly says. “There’s no telling how many gallons of sweet tea we go through on a busy summer day.”
Keeping up with the demand for the Wigwam’s fresh, homemade coleslaw and macaroni and chicken salads can be a challenge. Molly recently mastered the Wigwam’s famous pimento cheese with guidance from her mom and aunt, Brenda Isenberg, who has also worked there since the beginning. “Someone told Mom and Brenda we can’t let the pimento cheese recipe die with them, so I’ve learned how to make it, and it’s been the same recipe since it opened,” Molly says.
Molly knows her regulars appreciate the effort, as do the tourists travelling Highways 31 and 218, drawn in by the building’s full-scale murals. Molly says the store’s name can be confusing for them and newer Hart County residents, since it’s all that remains of the roadside attraction and its iconic teepee-shaped overnight accommodations. Scattered across the country and popular in the 1930s and ’40s, Horse Cave’s was the first Wigwam Village built and included gas pumps and the general store where Molly’s store now stands. Adding to the confusion, 1 of the nation’s last 3 remaining Wigwam Villages is nearby in Cave City.
“They wonder why it’s called the Wigwam General Store when there are no teepees around here, but the older people around here know,” she says. “It’s been a part of our lives, and for so many people in the area, we just didn’t want to see it go to anyone else.”