When The Creek Bar & Grill closed in 2022, the Gray’s Creek community lost its only sit-down restaurant. Aside from a McDonald’s, a Bojangles and a Krispy Krunchy Chicken inside a Marathon Gas, places to grab even a quick bite were sparse. The S&K Farm Market, a neighborhood staple through six generations, was the area’s only mom-and-pop shop left.
Melissa Burns started working there when she was 17 under Earl Smith, a beloved Cumberland County farmer who died in 2024. Working at that store helped Burns discover her love for cooking, she said.
Years later, with her partner in life and business, Dustin Nixon, and their daughter Hailee Arbasetti, Burns is sharing that love with a community she has been a part of for 30 years. For Burns, another family-owned space just across the street from the one that shaped her felt only right…