Shack Mercantile Brings General Store Feeling To Brick

BRICK, NJ — When Laura Raucci was a child, she would watch the TV show "Peyton Place" with her mother. Her favorite part of it was scenes that showed the town's general store.

"I would obsess about it, just staring at what was on the shelves," Raucci said Monday. As an adult she pursued other careers — copywriting for an advertising firm, working as a bookseller, and later getting a degree in social work and becoming a therapist certified in addiction counseling. But the love of that general store stuck with her.

"I’ve always just wanted to be in that environment," she said.

It was a dream that sat waiting in the background until recently, when Raucci saw an opportunity to rent a little place she'd had her eye on for several years.

"I saw this little yellow house on Drum Point," she said. "I obsessed over it for six years. I was thinking I would do this (general store) in another year."

But when it became available in November, she debated. Her husband, Frank, told her to go for it. That's when The Shack Local Mercantile was born.

Raucci and her husband, who live in Bergen County and bought a home on Drum Point Road in 2015, have turned the little building into a cozy general store and haven for local artists.

"It's a community space," she said, "a place for local artists and artisans to bring these beautiful things they make so people who want these beautiful things can find them."

The space includes a garden area outside with picnic tables where people can enjoy refreshments they buy at the store. She's set up a bicycle rack, so residents can ride their bikes to the store and soak up its welcoming vibe.

Her goal is to highlight more and more local artists and artisans, people from Ocean County who may not have a huge reach but whose products add beauty and usefulness to anyone's home, she said.

The Shack opened June 11. Frank is a contractor, so he helped her with the work needed inside. Her children are professional artists, and her daughter helped create the shop's website.

Longtime Brick residents who remember General Stores Unlimited on Brick Boulevard, which closed in 2007, will appreciate the collection of offerings, from soaps and lotions and similar products to cutting boards and paintings and home decor.

"That’s what I had inside of my soul," Raucci said in response to the comparison. "That's what I wanted."

The Shack is open 11:30 a.m. to 6:30 p.m. Thursdays, 9:30 a.m. to 6:30 p.m. Fridays, and 9:30 a.m. to 3 p.m. on Saturdays at 515 Drum Point Road.

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