Polly's Folly.

Overview

Drive Route 29 south out of Charlottesville, past the point where the subdivisions thin out and the road settles into farmland, and you reach North Garden. Polly's Folly sits along Monacan Trail Road here, and it describes itself plainly: a little country store. That phrase does a lot of work. It means you can come in for lunch and leave with a dozen eggs, a loaf of bread, a bar of soap, and possibly a rock you didn't know you wanted.

The store leans into the kind of variety that a single-purpose shop can't manage. There is real food to eat, and there is a grocery side stocked with things worth driving for: local produce, beef, eggs, breads, cheeses, preserves. Then there is everything else, the part that makes the place feel more like a country crossroads than a market — local arts and crafts, fine woodwork, an assortment of random antiques, apothecary items like soaps and lotions, and a rotating spread of blankets, hats, clothing, and whatnot. The store's own word is "whatnot," and it fits.

What they carry

The grocery shelves are built around local sourcing. Produce, beef, and eggs come from the surrounding countryside, and the cases hold breads, cheeses, and preserves alongside them — the sort of pantry list you'd assemble for a good weekend at home rather than a quick convenience run. Polly's Folly promises "a boatload more" beyond that, which is the honest way of saying the inventory doesn't hold still. A country store's stock shifts with what's in season and what's come in the door, and part of the pleasure is finding out what's on the shelves this week.

Then there's the non-grocery half of the store, which is where the "folly" earns its name. Fine woodwork sits near random antiques. Local artists and crafters are represented. There are apothecary goods — soaps, lotions, the small pleasant things you buy for yourself or hand off as a gift. There are rocks. There are blankets and hats and clothing. It's the sort of place where you can walk in for one errand and end up wandering the whole floor, because the categories don't sort neatly and that's the point.

Good food and a reason to linger

The store puts its food front and center — "we have great food" is the first thing it says about itself after telling you where it is. The daily hours reinforce that this is a place built for eating as much as shopping. Monday through Friday the doors open at 11 AM and stay open until 7 PM, which is a lunch-and-supper stretch rather than a morning-provisions window. Weekends open earlier: 9 AM on both Saturday and Sunday, with Saturday running the full day to 7 PM and Sunday winding down at 5 PM.

That rhythm tells you something about how the store is used. A weekday visit lands squarely around a meal. A Saturday morning gives you the run of the place with time to browse the woodwork and the antiques. Sunday is the short day, a relaxed early-afternoon stop before the week resets. However you time it, the combination — food you can sit down to, groceries you can take home, and a floor full of local goods and oddments — is what a country store is supposed to be, and Polly's Folly is unembarrassed about being exactly that.

Finding it

Polly's Folly is at 2946 Monacan Trail Rd, North Garden, VA 22959, a few miles south of Charlottesville on Route 29. You can reach the store at (434) 964-0304, and its site is pollysfolly29.com. If you're heading down 29 toward Lovingston or Nelson County, it's an easy place to break the drive — a meal, a bag of local groceries, and whatever else catches your eye on the way out.

More retail in Crozet

Retail

Blue Ridge Bottle Shop

Specialty beverage retail in Piedmont Place.

Retail

Blue Ridge Farmers Coop

Shop in the Crozet area.

Retail

Bluebird & Co.

Shop in Crozet, Virginia.

Retail

Cedarmere In the Blue Ridge

Shop in the Crozet area.

← Back to the Crozet business directory