Unsure how soon she’ll have her full vision of the store ready, Bowden is hoping to at least have the deli open by the end of 2025. There, she plans to serve a variety of lunch staples, especially local classics: hoop cheese, crawfish salad, egg salad, bologna salad, hogshead cheese and pimento loaf.
But she also wants to transform the Onward Store, which she said had become somewhat of a tourist trap over the years, into something new. Bowden wants to add books and photographs showcasing the local blues culture, for instance. After all, she said, Muddy Waters grew up just around the corner.
And in addition to selling hunting supplies and retro toys – yes, including the Teddy Bear – Bowden wants the Onward Store to serve as a vehicle for local goods, like vegetables and crafts. In an area with few jobs, she hopes her investment in the space can encourage and support other local business owners.
Since she started repairs on the store a few months ago, visitors have constantly walked in, hoping it was finally open. Not yet, Bowden would tell them, but she would take their phone number down to let them know when it’s time to return.
“ The community really wants to see it happen, and I want to make it happen for them,” she said. “Ever since I first started looking at this place, it’s been like a mission, and I think of it as my sacred duty to have this place where people can gather and have good food and conversation and everything. That is important.”
Dining area at the Onward Store in Rolling Fork, where renovations are taking place by new owner Miriam Bowden, Friday, Nov. 21, 2025. Credit: Vickie D. King/Mississippi TodayWhile it’s taken some acclimating to the rural lifestyle, Bowden said she’s found her happiness in Mississippi that went away during the pandemic.
“We (up North) have some pretty bad opinions about (Mississippi), some of them are real, but a lot of them are not,” she said. “Beyond the notorious things about here, there is absolute beauty. I have found peace since I’ve been down here living on the family farm. That has been awesome.
“I can go out on my porch and look up in the sky and see the Milky Way at night. I could never do that in Washington, D.C. There’s such beauty here and there’s peace and there’s some good people here.”
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