Rory Curtis and Lee Ann Swanson blend their people skills with their love of great ingredients at Carolina Olive Oil
There’s more to Carolina Olive Oil than the name suggests. How much more becomes obvious once you step inside this shop in downtown Simpsonville.
Front and center are shelves of olive oils and balsamic vinegars, in an array of flavors from Habanero Pepper oil to Dark Bourbon vinegar. But that’s not all. There are bins of fragrant coffee beans from Leopard Forest in Travelers Rest, packets of seasonings, bags of loose tea. Keep going and you’ll find a wall of wine, and freezers filled with cuts of meat and fish. And that’s just the first floor.
Upstairs, the popular bar where owners Rory Curtis and Lee Ann Swanson staged live music on weekends before COVID hit is now a wine, tea, and coffee bar. Arranged around the long bar and white-clothed tables are displays of dried pasta, marinara sauce, bread and cake mixes, and soy candles that Rory makes himself. Remarkably, there are no TVs. This space is devoted to conversation, Rory points out, and connecting with their customers, many of whom have become friends.
It all started over a dozen years ago, when Rory and Lee Ann lost their jobs—he in sales, she in retail—around the same time. In searching for their next chapter, the high school sweethearts, who went their separate ways and reconnected 27 years later, began researching the idea of an olive oil shop.
They dipped their toes in the water—or oil, in this case—in 2012, selling olive oil out of the trunk of their car. When they were asked to set up a pop-up shop in Fountain Inn for the holidays, “our cash register was a shoe box,” Rory recalls. Even so, they sold out of olive oil in six weeks.
That successful pop-up led to a brick-and-mortar store in Fountain Inn, which they operated for a year before moving to their space on Simpsonville’s Main Street in early 2014. They started with just olive oil and vinegar but soon expanded their offerings to meet customer demand.
All the shop’s oils are pesticide-free, first cold press, extra-virgin olive oil, most of it from Tunisia. Complementing them are 12- to 18-year-aged balsamic vinegars from Modena, Italy. The majority of the 50 oils and 50 vinegars they carry—available for tasting at the shop—are flavored, as customers prefer. However, the couple reports that their two best sellers are unflavored: 3 Kings Olive Oil, a blend of three different Tunisian olives; and Grand Traditional Balsamic, aged for 18 years.
“[The shop] is a labor of love,” Lee Ann says—both for each other and for the community they have come to cherish.
Perfect Pairs
Between the 50 oils and 50 vinegars that Carolina Olive Oil carries, there are 2,500 possible combinations. Here are a few of Rory and Lee Ann’s favorites:
- Parmesan Cheese Olive Oil plus Fig or Pomegranate Balsamic vinegar makes a great salad dressing.
- Toss Lime Olive Oil and Coconut Balsamic with shrimp, fresh peaches, avocado, and pasta to make a delicious summer salad.
- For the perfect fruit compote to serve over cheesecake (or ice cream), purée Meyer Lemon Olive Oil with Wild Blueberry Balsamic and fresh berries in a blender.
104 S. Main St., #2, Simpsonville, Mon–Sat., 10a.m.–6p.m., carolinaoliveoil.com
