The Mushroom Spot in Greenville sells fresh mushrooms, art

Jul 17, 2023

Reporter

GREENVILLE — Tucked in the middle of the aging shopping plaza on Pleasantburg Drive is a new business that's hard to pin down.

Part retail shop, part museum, part demonstration center, part passion.

However you classify it, The Mushroom Spot has a unique backstory that begins with its owner, Ward Watson, and a hope to make the world of fungi accessible to all.

As a kid growing up in Greenville, Watson didn’t like mushrooms all that much, but he grew an interest that turned into a passion from years working in restaurants. In mushrooms, he found not just a world but a universe.

“I was like 'you’ve got olive oil stores, vinegar stores, soy candle stores, why can’t you have a mushroom store?'” Watson said of the idea for The Mushroom Spot. “Mushrooms are not just come in and buy mushrooms. You can go look for them, you can grow them, you have the foodie products. We have supplements, adaptogens, lions mane, cordyseps.”

The store, set in the aging Lake Forest Shopping Plaza across from Bob Jones University, is somewhat unique in that it sells mushrooms in many forms.

The Mushroom Spot is a space for learning about, purchasing and discovering mushrooms. Lillia Callum-Penso/Staff

It has fresh foraged mushrooms, along with mushroom-related products and foods, art, books on foraging and mushroom species, along with a small growing operation. You will find a handcrafted mushroom mug, mushroom jerky, mushroom tinctures and growing starter kits.

“Why not bring all that together in a store?” he said.

After graduating from Christ Church school in Greenville and attending Dartmouth College in New Hampshire, Watson stayed up North. Though he’d studied romance languages in school, he found a path to restaurants, drawn by the energy and the connection with people — and pushed by an economic downturn, he said.

He became fascinated with what he calls the intersection of mushrooms with human culture that stretches back centuries.

Traditional Chinese medicine is built around adaptogenic properties of various fungi, and more recently, lions mane, reishi and other varieties have gained traction as tools for health and healing.

The Mushroom Spot features a micro, indoor growing display, along with fresh foraged mushrooms, mushroom products, dried mushrooms, books and to make the world of mushrooms accessible to anyone. Lillia Callum-Penso/Staff

Within the culinary world, foraging has seen a renewed boost, thanks to an interest in local cuisine, sustainability and umami. Foraging, however, is different from farming in that foragers do not cultivate anything, but seek it out in its own naturally occurring environment.

Over time, Watson grew a deeper interest in the science of fungi and eventually fermentation as well. He grew to love foraging, drawn by the time in nature and the excitement of the find.

“There are so many mushrooms,” he said. “You can dry them, powder it and blend it with other seasonings. Lions mane, yellow oyster, pink oyster, chestnuts, maitakis or hen-of-the-woods. Reishi is medicinal. Wood ears, you can grow them on blocks."

He admits he wasn’t a great forager, but his fascination grew the more he learned, the more conversations he had. He began exploring the world, attending mushroom festivals and researching.

The Mushroom Spot is now open in the Lake Forest Shopping Plaza. Sonya Watson/Provided

With his parents aging, Watson returned to Grenville in 2012. He got jobs in restaurants, working everywhere from the former Green Room and Stellar Wine Bar to Southern Culture Kitchen to The Trappe Door to the Haywood Grill. He joined SCUMS, the South Carolina Upstate Mycological Society.

At the time, in South Carolina the mushroom momentum was growing but stymied by laws around certification.

That’s when Trad Cotter of Mushroom Mountain developed the certification course, allowing foragers to sell what they found for commercial consumption.

Watson was in the first certification class.

But it was the Charleston-based Husk restaurant opening in Greenville that solidified his passion for mushrooms.

Watson was part of the opening team in 2017, and he found a world that further fueled his passion for foraging, fungi and fermentation. There, he said chefs used mushrooms not just as ingredients, but as flavor enhancers, as tenderizing elements and as centerpieces to a dish.

“They would use mushrooms a lot for umami,” Watson said of the Husk culinary team. “They would paint the steaks with a mushroom glaze before they grilled them to get that flavor.”

With the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic, the restaurant closed for seven months before reopening as Husk Barbeque.

By then, Watson had moved on, but he’d found himself drawn to mushrooms.

He consulted a longtime friend, Lihn Nguyen, who worked in business and non-profits, and they began brainstorming mushroom business ideas. They considered a mushroom farm, but the logistics and startup costs were pretty high. Then, they considered an indoor growing operation, but ran into zoning issues with indoor agriculture.

That’s when the retail idea came about.

In May, Watson opened The Mushroom Spot as both a resource for those seeking information on foraging and varieties and as a place to buy mushrooms.

Eventually, Watson hopes to add events like classes and growing and cooking demonstrations. And he hopes to collaborate with some of his fellow Lake Forest Shopping Plaza businesses, too.

“The whole idea is to make mushrooms more accessible,” Watson said. “Because if you wanna go buy a lions mane, you gotta go to the farmers market on Saturday morning. I wanna be all about mushrooms.”

The Mushroom Spot is now open at 1358 N. Pleasantburg Drive, Greenville. For more visit https://mushroomspot.store

Follow Lillia Callum-Penso on Instagram @lpenso

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