01/09/2025
Gatlinburg Roots: The Complete Story of Parton’s Grocery and Deli
Follow Gatlinburg Roots and help us preserve Smoky Mountain history!
Gatlinburg Roots: The Complete Story of Parton’s Grocery and Deli
Follow Gatlinburg Roots and help us preserve Smoky Mountain history!
Before Gatlinburg filled up with pancake houses and shops, the Parton’s building was already part of the town’s heartbeat.
It started with Pearl Parton, who owned the building on the Parkway. Downstairs she ran an antique shop full of old furniture, glassware, and keepsakes. Upstairs she rented out rooms to young men and women working in Gatlinburg, and she kept a strict curfew. Every single night Pearl sat up until the last boarder came in, making sure everyone got safely to their rooms before she went to bed. People remembered her for it — Pearl didn’t miss a night.
By the 1960s, her son Jim Parton and her nephew Henry Parton opened Parton’s Grocery Store in the same building. Gatlinburg was still a small town then, and families remember parking right on the street, stepping inside, and finding Henry at the fresh meat counter in the back. He cut the meat himself, wrapping hamburger patties that sold for just fifty cents a pack. The big front windows showed off whatever was in season — bananas were always a big deal when they came in — and the shelves were lined with the things local families needed every day. Many thought Jim and Henry were brothers, but they were cousins.
While the grocery stayed busy downstairs, Pearl kept her rooms upstairs through the 1960s and early 1970s, still waiting up for her boarders every night like clockwork.
Then, in August 1974, everything changed. After Henry’s son Dennis graduated high school, he and Henry decided to turn the old grocery store into Parton’s Deli. They kept the family building and the same familiar feel, but brought something new to Gatlinburg — hot Reuben hoagies on pumpernickel bread, chili dogs and slaw dogs, and sandwiches steamed until the bread was soft and warm using a Fresh-O-Matic steamer. The deviled eggs, potato salad, coleslaw, and the lemon pound cake were all made right there in the deli, the same way for decades.
Henry eventually retired, and Dennis ran the place by himself for years, keeping the old methods, the same steamer, and the same menu that locals came back for again and again.
Meanwhile, David Parton, Henry’s other son, graduated law school and opened an office upstairs — in the same rooms where Pearl once watched over her boarders. David drove a black BMW that he parked in the odd little triangular spot next to the deli, and over the years that car became a local landmark. People joked that it never moved, tourists snapped photos, and it even picked up the nickname “the unofficial welcome sign of Gatlinburg.”
So under one roof you had Pearl’s boarding house, the grocery store years of Jim and Henry, the 1974 deli launch with Henry and Dennis, and even the black BMW legend with David upstairs. It’s a single building tied to every era of Gatlinburg life — a place where family, food, and local history all came together.
Follow the Legacy
Gatlinburg Roots is an ongoing heritage project sharing rare images, forgotten family stories, and voices from the mountains — before the tourists, before the park, and before the name Gatlinburg became known around the world.
If you grew up here, lived part of your life in these mountains, or know someone whose story needs to be told — we want to hear it.
Send us a message through Facebook at Gatlinburg Roots.
Your story could be featured in a future post.
