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For the first time in nearly 75 years, no one connected to the Wolfinbarger family will be selling liquor in Neosho.
Ken and Karen Puckett are giving up the last of a string of package stores started before and just after World War II by Karen's father, Sam Wolfinbarger Jr.
The sale of The Beverage Shoppe, 1039 S. Neosho Blvd., to a Joplin buyer, should be finalized around the middle of this month.
In 2008, the couple closed the second-to-last Wolfinbarger store, Beau Monde Package, which was located at 908 W. Harmony St. Now they're getting out of the business for good, closing a chapter in the family's — and the town's — history.
Involved are mixed emotions, as the Pucketts say they want to focus heavier on selling real estate, as well as have more leisure time, while acknowledging a certain amount of sentimental value with the business. But it's time, they say.
“It's time to do one job,” Karen said. “We'll sell a little more houses, go to the lake a little more, go see the kids a little more.”
According to the Pucketts, Sam Wolfinbarger Jr. originally had six or seven liquor stores around the area, including the two in Neosho — the Beau Monde and what is now The Beverage Shoppe. The latter was built shortly after World War II. The former around 1938. That was about the same time Wolfinbarger also launched Sam's Cellar tavern on the Neosho Square, which still bears the name, though is no longer in the family.
Wolfinbarger also opened, just prior to World War II, the Hereford House restaurant, where Southwest Missouri Bank now sits, on the corner of Harmony and Neosho Boulevard. There was a bar called the Beau Monde attached to the restaurant, along with a pint-sized liquor store of the same name, though the small building was moved around 1941 to its last location on Harmony Street.
During World War II, Wolfinbarger served as a cook in the U.S. Army. While he was away, his wife, Grace, Karen Puckett's mother, ran the bars and the liquor stores. She had help from her sister, Treva Franks, her sister-in-law Mona Wolfinbarger, and family friend Mabel Jones, as well as from other female family members. With most of the men gone to war, the women kept the businesses running.
“In those days, if you needed something you just called in your family and they all came,” Karen said.
For the first time in nearly 75 years, no one connected to the Wolfinbarger family will be selling liquor in Neosho.
Ken and Karen Puckett are giving up the last of a string of package stores started before and just after World War II by Karen's father, Sam Wolfinbarger Jr.
The sale of The Beverage Shoppe, 1039 S. Neosho Blvd., to a Joplin buyer, should be finalized around the middle of this month.
In 2008, the couple closed the second-to-last Wolfinbarger store, Beau Monde Package, which was located at 908 W. Harmony St. Now they're getting out of the business for good, closing a chapter in the family's — and the town's — history.
Involved are mixed emotions, as the Pucketts say they want to focus heavier on selling real estate, as well as have more leisure time, while acknowledging a certain amount of sentimental value with the business. But it's time, they say.
“It's time to do one job,” Karen said. “We'll sell a little more houses, go to the lake a little more, go see the kids a little more.”
According to the Pucketts, Sam Wolfinbarger Jr. originally had six or seven liquor stores around the area, including the two in Neosho — the Beau Monde and what is now The Beverage Shoppe. The latter was built shortly after World War II. The former around 1938. That was about the same time Wolfinbarger also launched Sam's Cellar tavern on the Neosho Square, which still bears the name, though is no longer in the family.
Wolfinbarger also opened, just prior to World War II, the Hereford House restaurant, where Southwest Missouri Bank now sits, on the corner of Harmony and Neosho Boulevard. There was a bar called the Beau Monde attached to the restaurant, along with a pint-sized liquor store of the same name, though the small building was moved around 1941 to its last location on Harmony Street.
During World War II, Wolfinbarger served as a cook in the U.S. Army. While he was away, his wife, Grace, Karen Puckett's mother, ran the bars and the liquor stores. She had help from her sister, Treva Franks, her sister-in-law Mona Wolfinbarger, and family friend Mabel Jones, as well as from other female family members. With most of the men gone to war, the women kept the businesses running.
“In those days, if you needed something you just called in your family and they all came,” Karen said.
Growing up in the 1950s, the second of five children, Karen helped out some at the Hereford House where her dad spent most of his time. She didn't have much, if anything, to do with the liquor businesses. Her older brother, Sammy, however, used to sell fireworks every Fourth of July in front of Wolfinbarger's Beverage, now The Beverage Shoppe. When Sammy was older, he helped make deliveries. Wolfinbarger had a liquor warehouse downtown from which he trucked whiskey and beer to his various liquor stores in the area.
In 1964, Sam Wolfinbarger started his last business venture: A health food restaurant and grocery store where Plymouth Rock Motel now is, on U.S. Business Highways 60 and 71.
“He sold liquor and health food — that's really something, isn't it?” Karen chuckled.
That same summer, Sam Wolfinbarger died, at age 54, of an aneurysm. Karen was a sophomore in college. Her mother, Grace, sold off the health food restaurant and all of the liquor stores except for the two in Neosho, which she continued to own and operate. Her brother-in-law, Tony Wolfinbarger, ran Sam's Cellar and Grace leased out the Hereford House.
Grace ran the liquor stores for the next decade or so. In 1973, Karen returned to Neosho with husband, Ken, whom she had married in 1967 and had started a family with in Little Rock, Ark. It was a year or two later that Ken began running the two liquor stores for his mother-in-law.
He purchased the businesses around 1985. Grace Wolfinbarger died in 1994, just two days after selling the Hereford House and one day after auctioning off its contents.
Ken Puckett tore down the old Wolfinbarger's Beverage building in the mid-90s and built a new liquor store there, changing its name to The Beverage Shoppe, which it has been called ever since.
Ken said he hasn't actively worked at the store for several years, though he stops by at least once a day. They have always had “wonderful help,” the Pucketts say, which has been key. They also tip their hats to their long-term clientele.
“We have had good, loyal customers and certainly have appreciated them through the years,” Ken said.
Loyal customers are certainly nothing new. On the day the old Hereford House was being torn down in the 1990s, some of the “old timers,” Ken said, that used to frequent the attached bar there got together for one last drink.
“They got themselves a couple of cases of beer and they went inside and sat down inside the bar there while the dozer was knocking the walls down!” Ken laughed. “And it was like, “OK, boys, it's time to go.”
None of the Pucketts' three children are interested in taking over the family business. And the parents say they're fine with that.
“It would be nice, yes, but they all have good jobs and it's not something they want to do,” Karen said.
She herself has come to terms with leaving the business — some might say a legacy — her father started some three-quarters of a century ago.
“I think it's going to be OK,” she said.
