TPW's Mercantile Pawhuska, OK
One afternoon a month or so ago, Paige (that's my best friend) texted me, "I want to go to the pioneer woman's mercantile." I said "let's go." So last weekend, we went!
We started the weekend off by making a celebratory pioneer woman recipe for nachos Friday night before waking up and driving the 5 hours to Pawhuska, Oklahoma the next morning.
Here I was ,being a naive little Ree Drummond fan, thinking we would waltz up to the little town of 4000 people around 1 and have a nice relaxing lunch of her typical comfort food fare and then peruse the general store for a few hours before heading back to Tulsa for an afternoon of shopping.
Paige knew better. She had seen Ree's facebook posts of the lines that awaited us.
There was a line on one side for the sit down lunch, a line next to it for a grab-n-go meal, and a line around the other side specifically for shopping and visiting the bakery. "The Merc" as Ree calls it, must've taken up half the block. It was huge! And I guess it has to be to house a deli, a general store, and a bakery!
While the lines looked ominous, the 2 and a half hours we spent in the line for the sit down lunch flew by. Heat lamps lined the sidewalk, there were fancy port-a-potties ;), and PW sheriffs lead games to keep us entertained.
I had the chicken fried steak with white gravy and Ree's dreamy, creamy mashed potatoes. It's a favorite of Lad's (Ree's husband, better know as Marlboro Man) for a reason. Paige had the fried pork chops with a pepper and onion gravy-like sauce and potatoes. We waited a good 40 minutes for our food to arrive after sitting down but the Merc just opened at the end of October, so I'm sure they are still working out all of the kinks!
Afterwards, we shopped and sat upstairs in the lounge area by the bakery, snuggled up with lattes (featuring Pink House Alchemy syrups from NWA) , pastries, and "Black Heels to Tractor Wheels," Ree's book about her and Lad's love story, just hoping that the rumors of Ree often hanging out in the Bakery signing books on the weekends would become a reality.
At 7:05 she made her appearance. I'm pretty sure we spent the first minute staring at her with our jaws on the floor. Then we snapped to attention, grabbed our books, and tried to appear calm and cool as we walked over to meet one of our biggest inspirations.
Paige made sure to point out that she and Ree's daughter shared the same name , and I made sure to tell her that I appreciated her use of Pink House syrups. What cool things to say to someone whose show you dutifully watch at 9 am each Saturday on Food Network, and whose blog you read as soon as every post goes up, am I right?
I loved how down to earth everything about the Merc was. The staff that kept us entertained during our wait in line, the obvious efforts made to keep everyone waiting in line as comfortable as possible, security that assured us they would try to found out if Ree would be coming back out that night, and Ree herself, who showed nothing but kindness to come and talk with her fans when I'm sure she was tired from the day and would have rather been doing other things.
The downtown of Pawhuska where the merc is located was decked out in Christmas lights complete with a large tree in the center. It really had that old town charm. Pawhuska is also the gateway to the tall grass prairie, where you can roam with the buffalo.
Ree told us to come back anytime and it's safe to say that we will be doing just that.
-Ellen
See the picture of us with our best friend that just doesn't know it yet, here.
And check out Ree's blog, here!