Ward Watson has worked for decades in front-of-house hospitality. A lifelong interest in mushrooms and the broader fungi family now has him switching to a supporting role for restaurants and home kitchens with the opening of The Mushroom Spot specialty grocery store.
Located in the Lake Forest Shopping Center at 1358 N. Pleasantburg Drive, the shop is a passion-turned-viable-business for Watson and his best friend since high school, Linh Nguyen. “I really just want to make mushrooms more accessible,” Watson said.
The Mushroom Spot currently carries nearly 50 species. That number will likely only increase as Watson aims to improve the accessibility to mushrooms from around both the Southeast and the world.
“Mushrooms are really big, and there’s a whole locavore idea of eating local,” Watson said, having an acute understanding of what that means from his time with restaurants like Husk Greenville. “Mushrooms, I think, have such a worldly thing, I want to bring in all kinds of worldly influences.” He referenced a statistic that 90% of cultivated mushrooms are grown in China, and he plans to be a local source for a respectable number of options from all regions.
Dried, distilled, powdered, liquified, and fresh, the types of fungi available at The Mushroom Spot run the gamut of most people’s experience. Watson is currently setting up a fruiting area that will eventually be visible to customers who want to watch mushrooms grow in a controlled environment.
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