The faded Royall sign stands tall among the cars and trucks parked outside of the old store, one that’s been pieced together since the 1940s. A light post planted in a patch of grass that meets the dusty parking lot slightly leans toward the building.

The washed wooden exterior features of the store are just part of the mask of the warm hospitality that lives inside Tipton’s Midway Grocery on Route 45 in Cumberland.

To one driving along the road, the building, sitting at the intersection of 45 and Holman Mill Road, may look lonely, but inside,the atmosphere is anything but.

“Oh, it’s just you,” said Julia Tipton, the store’s owner, smiling to a witty customer as he entered the store.

As Tipton, who’s affectionately known as “Ma” or “Ma Tip,” leaned across the counter talking to one of her frequent customers, a police scanner rambled in the background.

“It’s an accident on the other side of the court house,” she said to the man as two of her employees worked in the kitchen.

As one young man walked by a wall partially covered with photos of her customers, she wished him a happy belated birthday. 

“We’ve been here 21 years as of yesterday,” Tipton said while standing behind two stainless steel coffee pots among the sounds of a television spewing The Price Is Right.

Before Tipton purchased the store, Virgil and Ruth Wright owned it, she said. And before that, George Godsey owned it, and before him, Ford Wilson was the proprietor. She said a Mr. Rowe built the store either the late 1940’s or early 1950’s.

“Originally it was tiny,” she said of the store building. “[It was] basically one room.” More space was added on as time went on.

Tipton’s Midway sells a little bit of everything, she says, including groceries, tackle, glasses, plants, seeds, dog food and much, much more.

Tipton says she’s enjoyed every aspect of the store business, though it proves for long days, she said. “But, it’s a lot of fun. I enjoy people. Sometimes they get on your nerves, but that’s life,” she laughed.

The white-haired business owner has had many of the same customers for many years, some of which come in more than twice each day. If she doesn’t see certain ones, she gives them a call to check up on them.

Andy Blanton, a former Virginia State Police trooper, who sat in the corner eating his lunch, said he’s been coming to the store for 30 years. “I keep an account here…” he said, explaining that he pays Tipton in advance and debits his account as he buys things.

“My wife’s out of town, so it keeps me from having to cook,” he said, laughing.

Tipton said she’s seen generations of customers grow up in the store. “Kids that graduated this year, I’ve known them since they were born.”

She says after working six days a week in the store, “you really don’t have a life outside the store. You don’t have time for it.”

The most popular meal Tipton’s serves is breakfast, she says. The store usually gets about 30 call-in orders daily.

“We have our retired club that comes in about every morning…,” she said of the tables in the corner where people sit and talk while eating and drinking coffee. It’s the most satisfying aspect of the business, she said. “You get young ones, old ones, black ones, white ones, male, female, they all sit over there and get along. It’s a shame the rest of the world can’t do that,” Tipton said as she walked to help another customer.

Josh Rayfield, a Cumberland sheriff’s deputy, said he’s been coming to the store every since he was a little boy, adding that his kids were “pretty much raised there.”

“This is like a meeting place,” he said, noting the fishermen, farmers and hunters that frequent the establishment. Rayfield said Tipton has helped out numerous people living in the community in their time of need, along with fire departments and other organizations. “It’s kind of like a hub to this little Guinea Mills area, it really is.”

“If I don’t sell it, you don’t need it,” said Tipton, talking about her vast amount of stock.

As people enter the store, they speak to each other and slap each other’s backs before addressing Tipton as “Ma.”

“How you doin,’ Buckaroo?” Tipton said to a customer as he walked across the old wooden floor.

“She keeps me informed,” customer Charles Garrett said has he reached for his daily cup of unsweetened tea.

For 25 years now, 91-year old Charles Falbo has been coming in the store, sitting in the same small wooden chair, and eating breakfast every day. “[She] treats everybody right,” he said of Tipton.

Richard Johnson, a cattle farmer, who sat across from Falbo eating a bowl of steaming vegetable soup, said it was some of the best he’d ever eaten.

“They’re my adopted family,” Tipton said of her customers and the men who in the store eating their lunches.