A local family-owned store is closing after nearly 70 years in the community.
Country Boy Market in Glenmont is winding down operations before closing the store. It will shut down for good next week.
“It’s an institution,” said customer Judith Treanor on Wednesday.
“I’ve been coming to Country Boy for 40 years,” said customer Michael Hill.
Owner James Barnsley III said his father died last year and his brother recently suffered heart failure, leaving it to him and his son to run the store. Country Boy sells items like local seasonal produce, beer and wine, mulch, and plants.
“It’s too much for two of us to handle, the next thing we’ve got to do is just shut it down because we just can’t handle it in the spring,” said Barnsley.
Serving the community for decades, the store was in Wheaton for 28 years before moving to the Glenmont location on Randolph Road.
“Really appreciate our clientele, the customers and everybody just being behind us and supporting us,” Barnsley III said, noting community support for 68 years and also throughout the pandemic.
He said he has been working at the store since he was 10 years old. His son, James Montgomery Barnsley IV, has also worked at the store since he was a kid. Barnsley IV recalled photos of himself at just two years old with his grandfather.
“He pretty much built this place,” he said. “Him and my great-grandfather started back in 1955.” The family has roots in Olney since the end of the 1700s. They went down to Florida after World War II before coming back up and starting Country Boy in Wheaton.
