Hansel “Bunky” Carter
Hansel Carter, “Mr. Bunky,” passed away recently. This is an updated story Bill Hughes wrote about Mr. Bunky in March of 2014.
It was around 1960 when Great Falls High School grad Hansel Carter arrived in Columbia to find work hawking fruit and vegetables at a Forest Drive produce stand.
The job looked promising, but on his first day, the boss took a notion that a name like “Hansel” was somehow unbefitting the character of a downhome, roadside market.
“Son, you know anybody in Columbia?” the boss asked.
“No sir.”
“Good. When customers come in, we’re going to call you ‘Bunky,’ ” he declared.
Carter had no idea where the nickname came from, only that it stuck, finally evolving into near iconic standing as the brand for his Mr. Bunky’s Market Inc. Bunky’s (many patrons drop the “Mr.”) does business on U.S. 76 about 11 miles east of Columbia just past the gate to McEntire Joint National Guard Base.
After a stint at the produce stand, Bunky went on to drive a bread truck on a route that took him into the Eastover area. He liked the rural setting and in 1964 found work training horses and eventually managing M.L. Trotter’s farm. When Trotter died, Carter purchased the spread and expanded into production of nursery plants in addition to row crops.
In 1981, looking for an outlet for his nursery stock, Carter purchased the Po’ Boys Bait and Tackle Shop on the Sumter Highway at the intersection of Old Congaree Run. Carter added a meat market and a sandwich shop and operated the business until the morning of February 26, 1999 when a kerosene heater ignited a display of spray paint.
The ensuing fire, fed by farm chemicals and other flammables, burned the place to the ground leaving Carter devastated. “We had been planning a ten-year anniversary celebration in April,” he said standing beside the store’s ashes. The business had been a moneymaker at a time when low commodity prices were making life on the farm a challenge.
Rebuilding in the same location with timber cut from the farm, Carter reopened some 20 months later in a building of his own design today considered the defacto hub for the Eastover community—part restaurant, part meat market, part nursery. It’s also a rustic general store selling tools, hardware, farm supplies, groceries, gasoline, and consignments. One visitor described the decor as country chic, observing that a pot-bellied stove may be the only absent detail.
The store also bears Carter’s personal stamp. It could qualify as the area’s largest man cave, a 16,950- square-foot barn-like building with exposed beams and a second story deck around the ceiling.
Carter strung an array of model airplanes from the rafters flying imagined paths in view of game trophies looking on from the deck railing. Walls in the restaurant are crowded with airplane photos and war souvenirs, many gifts of Air Guard units who served in Iraq and Afghanistan.
A six-foot “EAT AT MR BUNKYS” banner on the ceiling greets restaurant diners. Carter said Air Guard warfighters asked for use of the sign, hung it over the door to their dining hall in Iraq, and later memorialized it with dozens of signatures. Nearby is a cased American flag, which accompanied a fighter pilot during a combat mission.
Carter said the restaurant and the butcher shop are the store’s top moneymakers. The meat market carries a wide variety of pork, chicken, and beef cuts. One popular item is the marinated rib eye that sold for $2.50 apiece at one time.
“We call Bunky’s the church’s cafeteria,” said Mark Williams, the former pastor of nearby Lebanon United Methodist Church, where Carter is a member. The restaurant is a popular Sunday breakfast and dinner destination for Lebanon’s worshipers who together with parishioners from St. John’s Episcopal and Beulah Baptist make up a noisy, ecumenical crowd.
Carter, with an ever-present ball cap and his grey locks combed into a ponytail, was a familiar sight to the Sunday crowd as he often helped bus tables in addition to acting as host.
Weekday’s lunch crowd usually includes a throng from the Air Guard base. The McEntire GIs got a particularly warm welcome because they gave Carter a chance to shoptalk about two of his favorite topics: airplanes and flying.
Carter earned his pilot’s license years ago. In 2014, he tried to fly a couple of times each week, taking off in one of two airplanes he owned in partnership with friends.
Carter said he’d largely bowed out of agriculture, something he enjoyed since his teens working on a farm outside Great Falls. He turned over the old Trotter acres to the care of his talented grower son, Jason, who was the state’s top soybean yield winner in 2012.
One daughter, Jill Lewis, is a nurse practitioner who occasionally helps at the store and supervises the selection and display of her dad’s artifacts. Her sister, Julie Rowland, is a resident of St. Simons, Ga., a frequent flying destination for Carter to visit his grandchildren.
Carter was often asked when he was going to retire. “People do that when you get gray,” he said. “I don’t feel old and besides I’m having too much fun. I guess I’ll retire when Dunbar (Funeral Home) comes to take me out the door,” he grinned.
Loading Comments