The General Store has a big menu, with a lot of different options for different people. We serve breakfast, brunch, lunch, and dinner, with regular daily specials because we have a lot of passionate people in the kitchen who love to express their culinary creativity, and being a grocery store, we always have a lot of interesting and new ingredients to experiment with. We’re well known for our wide selection of locally sourced dishes, and we pride ourselves on having something for everyone. However, if you’re vegan, gluten-free, paleo, keto, or on Whole 30, you may not immediately notice dishes that are tailored for your specific dietary needs. In the coming months, we will be working on providing a wider variety of vegan menu options, but one of the great things about the General Store is that our super friendly and helpful staff are always willing to offer suggestions or take requests on how to modify nearly anything on the menu to make it how you want it. Here are some suggestions on how to modify some dishes to meet your needs.

Make it vegan!

We have lots of tasty vegetarian options for breakfast, lunch, and dinner, but a lot of these may contain cheese, mayonnaise or aioli— not vegan. If there’s anything that you see with any of these ingredients, the simple switch is just to ask to remove the cheese, replace it with vegan cheese, replace regular mayo or aioli with vegan mayonnaise. 

Our house-made veggie burger patties are always vegan, made only with white or black beans, corn, onions, bell peppers, salt, and pepper. The recipe may change a little week by week, so if you have any specific food allergies to beans or onions, you can always ask for a list of ingredients, but it is always vegan. No egg, no dairy and no honey.

In addition to our vegan veggie burgers, we offer house-smoked tempeh as an option on many of our sandwiches. The tempeh Rueben is a popular vegetarian option, and the tempeh itself is also vegan, and many diners enjoy adding tempeh to salads, sandwiches, and pizza. Speaking of pizza, we always have shredded vegan pizza cheese on hand!

Menu options that are already vegan:

Hummus Wrap
Mixed Green Salad
Red Beans & Rice Dinner
Veggie Plate (three vegetable side items)

Menu options that can be easily made vegan:

Breakfast Burrito (with roasted veggies instead of meat, ask for no eggs, no cheese or vegan cheese)
Pizza (all pizzas can have vegan cheese added)
Veggie Burger (replace the chipotle mayo with vegan mayo)
Avocadomater (ask for no provolone, cream cheese, and mayo, substitute with vegan mayo)
Portabella Wrap (ask for no cheese or aioli, substitute vegan mayo or balsamic vinaigrette)
Roasted Vegetable Sandwich/Wrap (ask for no goat cheese)
Tempeh Reuben (replace Swiss with vegan cheese, replace 1000 island dressing with vegan mayo or balsamic vinaigrette)

Make it paleo, keto or Whole 30 compliant!

Saxapahaw and the surrounding area is a very health-conscious community, and we understand that either for weight loss, dietary restrictions or just for overall general well-being, we have a lot of customers who are paleo or are on a Whole 30 diet, and we’re more than happy to accommodate. All of our meats and much of our seafood is locally sourced where possible, so if you want a burger, you’ll find that our meat patties, whether it’s beef, lamb, goat or even emu, are incredibly tasty, bursting with flavor, and locally raised when possible. All of our beef is grass-fed, so what you’re tasting is real meat flavor, not fillers, hormones or other unnecessary chemicals that destroy the meat’s natural essence. Feel free to ask for any burger or sandwich without a bun, and we can add it over local mixed greens or roasted veggies.

We do cook with butter, but we also do a lot of cooking with animal fats. If you have any concerns, feel free to request ghee, pork fat or duck fat substitutes where possible. Some items may already have dairy in them when they’re prepped, but many don’t. Many restaurants use pre-packaged food portions that are just microwaved, deep-fried or boiled, with no way to alter the recipe at all. We prep a lot of our food ahead of time for convenience sake— no one is going to wait hours for brisket to be slow-cooked for example— but we have a lot of flexibility when it comes to modifying many menu items. If you have any questions about whether a dish contains dairy, legumes, grains, etc, we’re here to help find alternatives.

We also carry a wide range of paleo, keto and Whole 30 compliant groceries such as olive oil, avocado oil, ghee, coconut milk, and locally sourced meats.

Paleo or keto alternatives:

The Breakfast Burrito with no tortilla, with your choice of meats or roasted veggies (may contain white potatoes) in a bowl.

Omelets: Omelets can come with a wide range of fillings, including your choice of meats and veggies.

Burgers: Ask for no bun, no cheese, no mayonnaise or aioli. All burgers can be served plain, or on top of mixed greens.

Salads: The Chicken Avocado Salad, Duck Salad, and Duck Confit salads can all be ordered without cheese, and with balsamic vinaigrette instead of lemon herb dressing.

Dinner: Many of our dinner menu items can easily be made paleo by substituting mashed sweet potatoes instead of home fries or duck fat fries, or by asking for no cheese, dairy or rice. All dinner entrees can have their side items switched out for something to better fit your diet.

Gluten-free, alpha-gal (red meat allergy), peanut allergies and other concerns

If you’re going gluten-free for any reason, we have lots of GF options. Our gluten-free bread is made locally by Simple Kneads Bakery and is one of the tastiest and most popular gluten-free breads in the country. And we use it for all of our gluten-free breads for sandwiches and burgers. We also have gluten-free pizza crusts available for any of our pizza options. And if you’re looking to cut carbs, all of our sandwiches and burgers can be made into wraps using flour tortillas.

As we live in the southeast, and Saxapahaw is a very outdoorsy community, this comes with the risk of tick bites, and with tick bites comes the risk of tick-borne illnesses such as alpha-gal syndrome. This is a lifetime allergy to red meat and pork, and it’s becoming more common. In addition to a wide variety of chicken, turkey, and seafood, we have duck fat infused ground emu burger from Amarroo Hills Farm. Emu has a taste very similar to beef and cooks the same (medium rare, medium, well-done), and with the infused duck fat, it makes it an incredibly juicy and flavorful red meat alternative. We have a specialty burger called The Vladimir made with emu, but we can substitute the meat in any burger with emu or our house-made vegan veggie burger.

We often have customers who tell us they have peanut allergies and ask if we fry anything in peanut oil or if we share kitchen tools amongst things that may have been fried in peanut oil. For the most part, we don’t use peanut oil, preferring canola oil, butter or duck fat, and every batch of vegetable sides and home fries are cooked in their own iron skillet, so there’s no risk of cross-contamination. If you do have specific allergies, whether it’s peanuts, garlic, onions, red meat or anything else, always let us know and we’ll accommodate your needs.

Happy, healthy eating!