A Batesville Store state of mind

Well, it turns out that the Batesville Store will not be re-opening. Not in the Batesville Store building anyway. According to store owner Cid Scallet, who had to close the store in June after Health Department officials cited him for operating a restaurant without a permit, he and his wife and partner Liza are seeking a new location for their brand of country store, restaurant, and music hall after negotiations with the landlord and health officials fell through.

Scallet says they've found a few potential spots, but no contracts have been signed yet. As former Batesville Store patrons know, the couple transformed the sleepy country store into one of the area's most popular local music scenes.

Support for the couple was immediate (Scallet says there are 1,500 people on his email list) when they were forced to close, a situation that had as much to do with the Scallets' special brand of entrepreneurship as it did with heath code violations.  What they tried to do with the store may have endeared them to their patrons, but it left officials– who overlooked what was going on for some time– with little choice but to cite them for violations.

"We love to dream and are naive enough to think that dreams can be made real," says Scallet. "To put it another way, we still believe in the tooth fairy."

Indeed, considering the cost of real estate– Scallet says they want to try to buy a place– the couple may need a little magic.

"Liza and I have known each other since we were 14, and we started 'going steady,' as they called it back in the old days, when we were 16," says Scallet. "We grew up together, in other words, but we have never really grown up. "