Miller’s Store has new owners, new name

Miller’s Store, as it’s known by many locals, has new owners - and a slightly different name.

Jan (Strong) Robertson and her son Jeff Strong took over ownership of the business Oct. 17 from Tandy and Theresa Strong who had owned the store for the last 20 years. 

“Everyone knows it as Miller’s Store, and it’ll still be Miller’s Store. We have slightly changed the official name from Miller’s One Stop to Miller’s Kountry Store, country spelled with a K,” Strong told the Times. 

The big question on everyone’s minds: what about the pizza and ice cream? 

Jeff says there’s no need to worry, the store will continue to serve it’s signature hand-dipped ice cream cones and pizza, along with the burgers, deli sandwiches, sliced deli meats and cheeses by the pound and other goods, as it has for several years. Fuel, sodas, drinks, candy bars and typical convenience store items will remain. 

“We’re making some changes too. As soon as I can get a contractor lined up, we’re planning on adding onto the store. We’d like to add a kitchen so we can have a bigger menu. We’ll still keep the pizza, ice cream and all the rest, but we’d like to offer different breakfast, lunch and maybe dinner items,” Jeff said. “I don’t know exactly when its going to happen, but I hope to have that up and going by the spring.”

As of now, the store has added a breakfast pizza and some other quick-grab breakfast items including a sausage, egg and cheese biscuit. 

Jeff lives in Dora with his wife Beth (Morgan) Strong. The couple, and their four grown children, all graduated from Dora High School. He is a co-owner in the business and serves as the store’s full-time manager. 

The other co-owner, Jeff’s mother, Jan (Strong) Robertson, is also originally from Dora but relocated to Texas about 10 years ago for work. She hopes to return to Ozark County, (“home,” as she affectionately refers to it) at some point in the future to help run the store.

“We are distantly related to the Miller’s. My great-grandma Strong, my mom’s grandma, was a Miller. And if you go back further, Crawfords built the store. My step great-grandpa was a Crawford,” Jeff explained. “It has a family meaning to us, and that’s why we wanted it. My mom has also always wanted a store here. It’d been a long time coming, and when it came up for sale, we jumped all over it,” Jeff said. 

The store is located on Highway 160 at the junction of Highway J in Hardenville. Current hours are 6 a.m. to 8 p.m. Monday through Friday and 7 a.m. to 8 p.m. on Saturday and Sunday. Jeff says that as fall and winter season set in, the hours may change.

Call the store at 417- 679-4243 to place an order to-go to pick up or to find out more.

Closing a chapter

Tandy and Theresa Strong, who recently sold the business, say that they’ve made a lot of friends and have enjoyed chatting and seeing so many community members during their time owning Miller’s. 

“Oh, we’ve seen some changes in our years,” Tandy said. “We added the pizza and the ice cream, and both became real popular. We ended up selling about 20 pizzas a day, and I figure we sell as many as 40 ice cream cones a day too. It got to where we were going through eight to 10 buckets of ice cream a week, and those were three-gallon buckets.”

Tandy said one of his favorite parts of owning the store was visiting with everyone, especially the children who came in.

“I always had fun with the kids. There’d be something one would say or tell that would just get me going. About two weeks before we closed, D.E. Pleasant came in with his wife and boys… I called the older one Sir. He spun right around and said, ‘Don’t you be calling me sir, Sir.’ I asked, well what am I supposed to call you? He looked right at me, and he said, ‘You call me Stetson.’ Funny things like that I really enjoyed,” Tandy said. “We’ve also made a lot of friends and got to know a lot of people. I will miss seeing everyone.”

Tandy says the couple are slowing down some and focusing on their farm more. 

A store with a long and varied past. 

The store was originally built in 1948 by Ray Crawford and his wife Pearl. It was called the H. R. Crawford Store and sold gasoline, general merchandise and feed. 

At one time, a six-room living quarters was attached to the back of the store. Ray and Pearl had four children spread over a wide range of years. Their oldest, Jimmie, graduated from Gainesville High School in 1947. Their youngest, Jerry (who provided this information), graduated in 1964. He remembers living in the back of the store. 

Crawford siblings and cousins owned other several area stores: Lue Crawford at Hardenville, Johnny Crawford at Howards Ridge, Marshall Crawford at the state line, Truman Crawford at Clarkridge, Arkansas, and Eunice Crawford Messick at Pigeon Creek.

In 1961, the store at what is now Miller’s at Highways 160 and J was destroyed by a tornado. Ray Crawford immediately rebuilt it. Incidentally, another tornado destroyed his cousin Marshall Crawford's store at the state line a year later.

The sons of the two men, Bobby and Jerry, recently recalled a funny story about the tornado. They said Marshall Crawford didn't drink and didn't think much of Ray selling alcohol in his store at Hardenville. When the 1961 tornado destroyed Ray's store, Marshall came to help with clean-up. Walking around, he found a full, unbroken bottle of whiskey. He showed it to Ray and said, “Ray, this could be your problem right here,” likely meaning it was God's will that he shouldn't sell alcohol. 

A year later, another tornado destroyed Marshall's stateline store. Ray came to help and found an untouched, full stick of bologna in the rubble. He held it up to Marshall and said, "Marshall, this could be your problem right here." 

Jerry Crawford laughed, saying his dad also likely pointed out that the liquor store across the street from the Crawford store at the stateline was untouched by the tornado.

The Crawfords continued to operate the store until they sold it to Ray and Mary Farmer sometime around 1964, Jerry Crawford said. It was known as Farmer’s Grocery at that time. 

In 1979, the Farmers sold the store to John and Rosalie (Miller) King; Rosalie was an Ozark County native who graduated from GHS in 1966. They renamed it to Miller’s Grocery because Rosalie's family was well-known here. 

The Millers sold the store in 1983 to Jim and James Owens, who moved to Ozark County from San Diego, California, where James had previously been a real estate broker. The couple told the Times at the time of their purchase that they’d seen the store for sale in a real estate catalog and decided to purchase it. 

The Owens couple owned the business for 19 years until 2002, when they sold it to Tandy and Theresa.