A little store makes a big difference in Swannanoa
Rite Buy Grocery Embraces Roles as Beacon Village Retail and Community Hub
Fred McCormick
The Valley Echo
January 27, 2026
Rite Buy Grocery owner and operator Diana Rhodes, left, and Valley Hope Foundation founders Sarah and Will Carpenter partnered to establish Community Cares, a grocery assistance program in Swannanoa. Photo by Fred McCormick
Rays of sunshine beam through panes of glass set into a bay door facing Alexander Place in the center of Beacon Village, as local shoppers browse carefully stocked shelves and peruse vibrant produce in illuminated refrigerated display cases. A little more than one month after quietly opening its doors on the final day of fall, Rite Buy Grocery is establishing itself as more than an independent market.
In its current status as Swannanoa’s sole grocery store, the neighborhood retail shop building partnerships to support the community.
Following the temporary closure of the nearby corporate supermarket after Helene in September of 2024, Diana Rhodes was inspired to shift from her longtime electronic commerce career to an investment into the unincorporated town in which she lived. She renovated a 1,200-square-foot metal building in the resurgent downtown district, maximizing the space by focusing on products not readily available in Swannanoa, which was devastated by the natural disaster.
“There was a pretty significant amount of work we had to put into this building,” said Rhodes, whose goal to open in the fall of 2025. Rite Buy, which offers a range of dry goods, dairy, produce and meat, welcomed eagerly awaiting shoppers the weekend before Christmas. “It was overwhelming in so many ways. There were so many tears that weekend, coming from me and coming from people walking in the door. They were all happy tears. That first week was pretty special.”
The market’s location in the middle of Swannanoa, which once served as a thriving business community supporting Beacon Manufacturing for nearly seven decades, before its closure in 2002, offers its own significance. Situated adjacent to Short Sleeves Coffee yards from Blunt Pretzels, with nearby Town Hardware Swannanoa and the Beacon Bike Park anticipated to open later this year, Rite Buy represents the return of another essential business in the aftermath of Helene.
“A friend of mine, whose family has lived in Swannanoa for five generations, never imagined she would see an independent grocery store in this town again,” Rhodes said. “And, that’s someone who grew up with a grocery store where Blunt Pretzels is now.”
New customers are greeted by freshly painted dark green exterior walls with vintage style signs and a striped awning. Inside, Rite Guy Grocery features an open floorplan filled with shelving, bulk bins and lined with refrigerated display cases. The majority of the products are sourced from local producers and farmers, according to Rhodes.
“We have dozens of vendors in our notebook that are either regional or hyper-local,” she said. Some products, like Pisgah Brewing Co. beer, fresh bread from City Bakery or grass-fed beef from Hickory Nut Gap Farms, come from right down the road, while others are brought in from communities like Vila. “Shipley Farms Beef has been farming the same land for 150 years and they’ve always done regenerative agriculture. Partnering with people who are doing such positive work in the farming industry is another one of those things we’re really excited about.”
Diana Rhodes stocks produce in the Rite Buy Grocery, an independent market that opened last December in Beacon Village. Photo by Fred McCormick
Those local connections create a “ripple effect” throughout the area business community, she added.
“One of the things we wanted to do here was have an economic impact in the community, not just by paying our employees a living wage, but by placing regular orders with regional producers and farmers,” Rhodes said. “That means these businesses can count on these weekly orders coming from us, so they can now factor that into their budgeting and decision-making. Maybe it means they can buy a piece of equipment they were thinking about getting, or give their employees a raise.”
While the independent grocery model does not enjoy the benefit of cost of scale, relatively low operating costs and reduced profit margins allow the Rite Buy to contend with those challenges, according to the owner.
“Big box retailers can orders pallets upon pallets of goods and drive their costs significantly lower than what I can offer,” she said. “So, naturally my cost is going to be higher, which is something I always try to take into account when setting my margins. I spend a lot of time thinking about how to make things as affordable as possible, while also asking our community for a little grace and understanding.”
A local partnership with the nonprofit Valley Hope Foundation, established in the days after Helene to assist area residents with relief and recovery efforts in the community, represents another crucial effort in supporting affordability. Community Cares, a grocery assistance program developed through a collaboration between Rite Buy and Valley Hope, is designed to allow families and individuals experiencing food insecurity to utilize a “community-powered grocery card.”
The initiative of Nourish WNC, one of three areas of focus for the Valley Hope Foundation, is funded by community donors and sponsors, according to Will Carpenter, who established the nonprofit organization with his wife Sarah and other Swannanoa residents.
“Valley Hope was born out of a community response to Helene,” Will said. “We live in Lytle Cove, with our kids, family, friends and neighbors. When the water subsided after the storm, and everyone realized how substantial the damage was, we all congregated at Appalachian Tool & Machine, we figured out pretty quickly that the storm would require a long-term response.”
Through its Nourish WNC program, the nonprofit organization supplied nearly 600,000 meals in 2025.
Rite Buy Grocery offers local products, including fresh bread from City Bakery and meat from Hickory Nut Gap Farms. Photo by Fred McCormick
“Community Cares is designed to allow shopping with dignity,” Sarah said. “Many people are still standing in lines at food pantries, and having that option is a great thing, but being able to come into a grocery store and buy high-quality local nourishing food can be life-changing for some people.”
While the privately funded program operates similarly to government assistance programs like Electronic Benefit Transfer (EBT) or the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP), Community Cares is intended to be used in conjunction with those services, according to Sarah.
“At this point, it’s almost like a pilot program,” Rhodes said. “But, our hope is that if it’s successful, and it’s already showing some success, it can be something that could be introduced to other rural communities that have independent grocers.”
The grocery assistance program provides families struggling after Helene to feel a sense of “hope,” according to Sarah.
“Just knowing you have access to high-quality food from a farm or producer just down the road can be empowering for people who are struggling to recover from Helene,” she said.
Bringing a neighborhood market back to Swannanoa represents the first objective for Rhodes, who finds validation in the positive feedback she has received since launching the endeavor.
“It was never my intention to open a grocery store anywhere, I was going to open a grocery store in Beacon Village,” she said. “Being in a central location allows people with transportation the ability to get here safely, so this felt like the best place to serve all of Swannanoa. Of course, it’s incredible to have people from other communities come in, but from the beginning this has always been a love letter to Swannanoa.”
The support of the community, Rhodes added, allows Rite Buy to support other local businesses and residents.
“I think that’s been one of the best feelings since opening, especially since our community had been without a local grocery store for more than a year,” she said. “So far, this experienced has really helped me understand that a little store can make a big difference.”