A Gracious Plenty brings a taste of the culinary arts to Downtown Perry 

PERRY — Former councilwoman Joy Peterson recently opened a new kitchen shop, A Gracious Plenty in Downtown Perry. Her store is located at 925 Jernigan St., connected to Lanier Hays Designs. 

The store offers a wide range of products, including spices, sauces, various seasonings, and food mixes. Peterson said A Gracious Plenty is solely dedicated to all things kitchen. 

“The shop carries both food items and entertainment pieces such as serving pieces and trays for entertaining,” she said. “If you’re a grill master or want to become one, I carry all types of seasonings, rubs and sauces for grilling.” 

Peterson has owned A Gracious Plenty for over a year now, the store originating in Marshallville. 

“I live in Perry, so the opportunity became available to me to join Lanier Hays Designs in her building,” she said. “We’re sort of creating a marketplace there, and if the fit is right, we would like to add other people to kind of create a marketplace of individual vendors.” 

Peterson receives most of her items from the Atlanta Merchandise Mart. Her shop also holds items from various places around the country and the world, such as food lines carried out of Montreal, Canada. Peterson also has two award-winning items at A Gracious Plenty: Five Otters Olive Oil from Eastman, Georgia, and Woodpecker Trails Olive Oil and Balsamic from Glennville, Georgia. 

“I carry historic teas from Charleston, South Carolina, Woodford Reserve Old Fashioned mix with cherries and bitters from Kentucky and some olive wood pieces I carry from the Northwest such as bread knives and other utensils for making bread,” she said. 

Peterson describes the atmosphere as calm, yet interesting and fun. 

“I want to create a pleasant environment where men and women can just have fun exploring their interest in cooking and be able to secure ingredients that they cannot find anywhere else,” she said. 

It has been a very smooth transition for Peterson, who has gone from being a member of the Perry City Council to running her business in Downtown Perry. She said that Perry is a unique community. 

“I’m not from Perry, and I haven’t lived here my whole life and that didn’t stop the people from electing me to council or supporting me as a business woman,” she said. “I think that’s a wonderful thing about Perry. I never got the sense that because I wasn’t from here that my level of achievement was going to be limited.” 

To learn more about A Gracious Plenty, check out the store’s Facebook page www.facebook.com/people/A-Gracious-Plenty/61556791681248/?checkpoint_src=any