The same old store …

By Erin McGrath

Published: May 15, 2008

The three bells on the newly painted blue doors rang as William Nash of Schuyler recently stepped through the door of Randolph’s Grocery.

Bill Stockton, 63, the new owner of the small store, grabbed a bottle of Diet Coke for Nash after letting him know he was out of bread for the day.

Stockton and his family purchased the store in January, when he, his wife and son moved to Nelson County from Los Angeles.

“My wife was back here, and she was helping to take care of her mother,” Stockton said. “And was going by one day and saw the for sale sign out front of this place.”

Russell Randolph, the previous owner of the store, had put it up for sale because health issues kept him from being able to run it day to day. Randolph had owned the small store since 1981.

Stockton said his wife, Leah, called him to let him know Randolph had it up for sale and the couple decided to make an offer on the store, which is more than 50 years old.

“And the next thing you know she says, ‘Guess what? You’re moving to Virginia’,” Stockton said.

The couple had already planned to move to Nelson to be closer to his wife’s family once his youngest son, Chuck, was done with college. They’d known about the grocery store for more than 30 years.

While still in the Navy, Stockton said he and his family would take weekend trips down to Nelson County and would frequent Randolph’s Grocery store.

“When my wife saw that the business was for sale, she thought this would be a good chance to get us started,” Stockton said.

Randolph’s Grocery officially re-opened from being closed for almost six months on Feb. 11.

Stockton said he plans to keep much of the store the same, including the name.

“We decided that it’s been ‘Randolph’s’ for so long, that we wanted to keep the name,” he said. “We want to just make it the same old store that it was for the longest time.”