You can’t miss it — the little lavender building adorned with twinkly white lights: Take Heart boutique in Blowing Rock looks a bit like somebody’s garden cottage. Except it’s on Main Street. “It kind of stands out,” owner Sheri Furman admits, laughing. But Furman had a good feeling about opening the boutique, and that sort of hunch is how she assembles stock, too. Each year, she asks a question that every new item has to answer. Say, “Is it comforting?” (The fuzzy sweaters, candles, and shea butter soap sure are.) Or, “Is it lovely?” (The heart-patterned stationery and that wooden sign paraphrasing Walt Whitman: “We were together. I forget the rest”? Certainly.) Couple this cozy curation with Furman’s bright and kindly spirit, and you can see why local customers are regulars at the shop and why tourists devotedly return — no matter how much time has gone by. “Blowing Rock is where people vacation,” Furman says. “You see people you haven’t seen in a year. So on a good day, it feels like a homecoming.”
Take Heart Boutique
1009 Main Street
Blowing Rock, NC 28605
(828) 295-3444
In North Carolina, spring brings the scent of fresh-cut grass and memories of helping Dad mow the lawn.
Nostalgic burger joints are like time machines, delivering something extra special that keeps us coming back.
This tiny city block in downtown Greensboro once had a gigantic reputation. Not so much for its charbroiled beef patties — though they, too, were plentiful — but for its colorful characters and their wild shenanigans.
In the 1950s, as Americans hit freshly paved roads in shiny new cars during the postwar boom, a new kind of restaurant took shape: the drive-in. From those first thin patties to the elaborate gourmet hamburgers of today, North Carolina has spent the past 80 years making burger history.
