Old Friends on a New Adventure
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CArol Mann Slowik (L) and Tracy O’Connor-Mcgraw, co-owners of Dogwood
It all began with a conversation about retirement. It concluded with an unexpected agreement to purchase a business.
Carol Mann Slowik had been working with Kelli Specter, the owner of Dogwood, since the year the quaint store first opened its doors in 2017 in the blue building on Little Rainbow Row in Flat Rock. Fast forward six years and Carol was 66 years old and contemplating retirement. So in January 2023, during one of Kelli's visits to check on the store, a discussion ensued about Carol's retirement.
After Carol shared with Kelli that she was contemplating retirement, her boss’s response caught her off guard. “Why don’t you just buy the store?” suggested Kelli. Taken by surprise, Carol immediately responded, “I don’t think I want to buy a store.”
And yet, Kelli persisted. “It would do my heart good if you and Tracy bought the store,” she said. Tracey O’Connor-McGraw also worked at Dogwood part-time and had been one of Carol’s best friends for over 35 years. Carol left work that evening with a lot to think about.
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Despite her initial disinclination to the idea, Carol decided to reach out to Tracy to discuss the unexpected opportunity. Tracy, 65, was already retired and worked just a few hours a week at Dogwood to fill in as needed. They discussed whether tackling the responsibility of owning a business was how they wanted to spend their “retirement” years.
It was not an easy decision and the pair discussed their options over the course of the next six months. Ultimately two factors helped shape their decision to say yes to Kelli’s offer. The first was their friendship. “We’ve been best friends forever,” says Carol with a smile. “We are kindred spirits.” The second factor was their shared love of the business model Kelli established at Dogwood. “We both love the store,” says Tracy. “We know the store. We're crafty. We just love it.”
As a result, in July of 2023 two long-time friends decided to push back their retirement a few more years to do something they love in partnership with a good friend. Today you will find Tracy and Carol happily staging their store, chatting with customers who wander in, and sharing the adventures of business ownership.
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Tracy assisting a customer at Dogwood
The partnership between Tracy and Carol actually originated nearly 40 years ago at a popular Hendersonville restaurant called McGuffey’s. The restaurant had recently opened in the brand new Blue Ridge Mall on Four Seasons Blvd. They were both hired to work there and spent the next decade working as waitresses, kitchen staff, assistant managers - or anything else that it took to keep a restaurant running. A friendship quickly bloomed and they’ve been close ever since.
The two were so close that Tracy asked Carol to be godmother for both of her daughters. Tracy eventually moved on to Park Deli in downtown Hendersonville. Carol met and married a fellow Michigander and eventually started a business making jewelry. Years later she returned to Michigan to help care for her mother. When Carol decided to move back to Henderson County a second time, the pair reignited their friendship and found themselves working together again at a new business that had just opened on Little Rainbow Row in Flat Rock.
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As a child, Tracy lived in Old Lyme, CT before her widowed mother decided a change of scenery was needed and relocated with her three young children to Flat Rock in 1968. They moved into a home on Little River Road directly across from the goat pastures of the Sandburg home. Tracy remembers listening to Mrs. Sandburg out in the fields singing to her goats.
Tracy also recalls riding her bike to Peace’s Grocery store - now The Wrinkled Egg. “We had a charge account there - which was bad,” Tracy recalls with a laugh. “We’d get bubblegum, candy and whatnot.” She particularly remembers the summer before she was slated to start at Flat Rock Junior High School (now the site of Flat Rock Square). The school building fell victim to an arsonist and was largely destroyed before Tracy ever attended class there. “I sat on my front porch crying.”
Tracy remained in Flat Rock until she got married after finishing high school at East Hendersonville. She and her husband Rick raised two daughters and after 46 years of marriage their family now also includes two grandchildren. Tracy spent the majority of her career in food service - after McGuffey’s she worked at Park Deli in downtown Hendersonville for several years and then at Tooley’s Cafe in Laurel Park. By 2015, she was working with Starr Teel at Hubba Hubba Smokehouse in Flat Rock. When not helping run the business, she was also helping Starr cover Little Rainbow Row in a blanket of flowers.
Then in 2017, Starr and Kelli Specter partnered to open Dogwood - named for the Dogwood tree growing next to the store. Tracy moved over from Hubba Hubba to become one of the first Dogwood employees. When her husband retired in 2018 after 40 years with General Electric, the couple decided to pursue their dream of living at the beach. It was enjoyable for a while, but the call of the mountains proved irresistible and the couple moved back to their current home in Columbus, NC after just two years. She also found her way back to Dogwood.
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CArol with a favorite tea towel from Dogwood
Carol grew up in Birmingham, Michigan. She and her young son moved to NC after a divorce in the mid-1980s. She ended up in Hendersonville when she decided to follow friends who had moved to western NC to escape the harsh Michigan winters. She was soon working at McGuffy’s where she first met Tracy. As had been true for Tracy, the call of the mountains was irresistible and Carol returned to western North Carolina for a second time in 2017 - just a few months after Starr and Kelli opened their new store. Tracy convinced Starr and Kelly to hire her best friend and 32 years after they first worked together, Tracy and Carol found themselves working together once again.
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Today, Tracy and Carol are obviously enjoying the opportunity to own their own business - even though there has been a lot to learn in a short period of time. “Neither one of us has been an owner of a store,” admits Carol. She shares that the first six months have been a crash course in business ownership. “We kind of knew how the store worked, but we had never been on the backside of it where you have to get it all done - writing checks, working with consignment people, ordering inventory.” Still, Tracy says they’ve managed to find a way over every hurdle so far. “It’s been a lot of work - but we’re both still having fun. There’s a lot of stuff we just laugh about. We figure it out.”
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Very personable and committed to their business, Tracy and Carol really enjoy their work - and the customers who wander into their store. “A lot of local people like to shop here for gifts. There’s something for everybody,” says Carol. Out-of-town visitors make them smile when they ask where to find the “rest of Flat Rock”. “I just tell them, ‘You’ve found it,’” Tracy says with a laugh.
Carol especially enjoys watching her customer’s reactions to the items that she and Tracy work so hard to find and put on display. “I love watching people get joy out of our stuff. To hear them laugh at our tea towels or when they tell us how much they love the store.”
Because they’ve been with Dogwood for years, Carol and Tracy are new owners who also happen to know all the old customers. Locals and seasonal visitors are repeat shoppers at Dogwood and there is a strong sense of shared community in the store. The little store stays busy - especially in the fall according to Tracy. “October is the busiest time. People come to pick apples, get barbecue, shop at The Egg, shop in our store, and eat at the bakery.”
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Dogwood offers an eclectic mix of items and, although crammed packed with an amazing assortment of merchandise, never feels cluttered or overwhelming. The shop carries home goods, garden items, gifts, local crafts, and anything else that captures the eyes and imagination of the new owners. “I think the variety is why our customers like our store,” says Carol. “We have a lot of different things for a lot of different types of people and our prices reflect that as well.”
Carol and Tracy also enjoy being part of the colorful collection of shops and businesses that make up Little Rainbow Row. As a long-time Flat Rock resident, Tracy appreciates the tradition reflected in the business district. “I love it. It’s a nod to Charleston and honors the history of the people that always came up here in the summers and helped create Flat Rock.”
These days, visitors to Dogwood will find the new owners working together on most Saturdays and chatting amiably with customers, old and new. Their enjoyment is obvious through their smiles and the way they talk about the store. Indeed, for customers stepping into the small shop with a big heart, it’s easy to feel Carol’s and Tracy’s positive energy radiating throughout the store - two old friends embarking on a new adventure and loving the chance to join forces once again - this time as the new co-owners of Dogwood.
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2720 Greenville Highway
Flat Rock, NC 28731
(828) 708-2108
Store Hours at:
www.dogwoodofflatrock.business.site
