PUB SCOUT
Brisk Business
Leaf & Barrel Fills a Niche (or Two) in Hampstead.
M BY KURT EPPS, A.K.A. THE PUBSCOUT PHOTOGRAPHY BY CHRIS BREHMER
My buddy Dave and I get to Leaf & Barrel Provision Co. in Hampstead about 15 minutes before its 2 pm scheduled opening, so we saunter over to Reel Pizza in the adjacent building for a slice or two of pretty decent pizza. There we chat up Todd, the transplanted Bostonian owner and former engineer, who tells us that the guys next door are doing a slamming business. He benefits from such symbiosis, because Leaf & Barrel doesn’t serve any food, and Todd doesn’t serve anything stronger than ginger ale. And most folks know that beer and pizza are as joined at the hip as these two stores are. Hence, Todd is kept busy by the clientele 34
Topsail Magazine
of the guys next door whenever there’s a crowd of people — which is almost always. But Todd makes some poignant observations. The “Leaf ” in Leaf & Barrel’s name stands for the tobacco leaf, and the beer business — a former Subway sandwich shop — has a climate-controlled walk-in humidor housing some of the finest cigars on the market. “Theirs is the only place on 17 between Wilmington and Jacksonville where a cigar lover can get cigars like that,” Todd offers. “That’s huge.” And it might be “huger” if N.C. law allowed the smoking of
