Page Updated: December 04, 2023
Mount Airy
“Walley’s Towing” - Mount Airy NC
Hometown of Andy Griffith and the inspiration for the fictional town of Mayberry, Mount Airy is a small town located just off the Blue Ridge Parkway in northern North Carolina. The town has mastered the art of incorporating its favorite son into its patchwork. Visitors can stop at recreations of the Mayberry Jail and Courthouse, take a squad car ride in vintage style through town, and partake of the goodies from establishments brandishing names like Walley’s Service Station, Floyd’s Barber Shop, and Opie’s Candy Store. You can even get a porkchop sandwich at Snappy Lunch.
This was a great laid back day! Our 30 mile drive to Mount Airy took us past Pilot Mountain which we were content to see from a distance.
By midmorning, we were poking around Mayberry recreations in Mount Airy and discussing memories of the show. We opted out of the Mayberry Squad Car Tour; which in retrospect is a bummer. The tour is an estimated 30 minutes, and I’ve read the guide is phenomenal making the tour is well worth the cost.
Strolling Main Street, we passed a number of Mayberry themed establishments and found the stringed instruments around town endearing, but we found ourselves skipping the porkchop sandwich and grabbing lunch at Mi Casa on Main. Service was quick, our orders were hot, and the ingredients were fresh. Loved it!
After lunch, we explored the Mount Airy Museum of Regional History and learned a little bit about town and how it came to be. The museum full of interpretive exhibits spanning hundreds of years.
We stopped at the Old North State Winery on Main and were surprised to learn it’s one of the larger wineries in North Carolina as we weren’t super impressed with our selections. To be clear, neither of us are sommeliers. And we understand flavors are subjective to the individual, but we both found our selections tasted spoiled and wouldn’t drop by Old North again.
Even though we bombed out at our wine tasting, we were pleasantly surprised with our spirit tastings. Away from Main Street and near the train tracks near Lovills Creek, Mayberry Spirits Distillery offers a tour of their distilling room and shares interesting specifics to their process. The owner - once a monk - is gracious and welcoming and makes a phenomenal whiskey sour sans egg. Highly recommend if spirit tastings are your thing.
-b&b
Mount Airy Museum of Regional History
