YOU ARE HERE Each month, we’ll throw a dart at a map and write about where it lands. LOCATION: 4227 Statesville Road
tesville a t S 7 2 42
Road
Meat You at Jerry’s MAHMOUD AL-WARDAT bags penny candy in Jerry’s Market on a Monday morning. A customer named Patty approaches from the butcher counter. She carries delicacies that distinguish this neighborhood grocery store and butcher shop, a staple on Statesville Road for nearly a half-century: garlicflavored Genoa bologna that Patty says she can find only at Jerry’s and a special treat for her daughter, who’s visiting— souse meat, or “hog’s head cheese,” a gelatinous spread made from pig scraps. Al-Wardat walks around to the register to tend to her.
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CHARLOTTEMAGAZINE.COM // AUGUST 2021
Al-Wardat, 33, is a Jordan-born engineer who grew up around his family’s butcher shop in Spartanburg, South Carolina. He jumped at the chance to buy Jerry’s last year, but it seemed right to keep the name the market’s had since the late Jerry Wike opened it with his wife, Patricia, in the mid-1960s. A wallet-sized photograph of Jerry and Patricia is tacked to a post near the register. His head butcher—a friendly man named Aaron Gaddy, whom customers call “A.G.”—worked for Harris Teeter for 35 years before Jerry’s hired him four years ago. A.G. slices up favorites like oxtails and
beef neckbones and wraps up short ribs and chicken straight from local farms. Up front, Al-Wardat stocks throwback candy like sugar cigarettes, Sugar Daddy lollipops, and old-fashioned coconut slices. Soon after he bought Jerry’s in September 2020, Al-Wardat had an artist paint meat-themed murals on the exterior. But inside, it hasn’t changed much over the decades. “If I want to make it look shiny and have nice floors, the place will lose its flavor. It’ll be just like any shopping center,” he says. “I won’t let that happen. I want to keep it as old-school as possible.” —Cristina Bolling
SHAW NIELSEN; CRISTINA BOLLING
Mahmoud and A.G. sling oxtails and hog’s head cheese at this Statesville Road mainstay
