Troyer’s Country Amish Blatz has a new name and new owners, but the famous sandwiches remain.

For years, members of the Asheville Foodies Facebook group have been touting what residents of Fairview and Union County have known for nearly 20 years – the best sandwiches around were made in the deli of a little roadside store with the peculiar name Troyer’s Country Amish Blatz.

Owners Bonnie and Phil Troyer were beloved members of the community; their son and daughter-in-law, Phillip and Michelle Troyer, have been making those famous sandwiches for years. Nothing fancy – fresh sliced meat, cheeses and produce stacked like a Dagwood on fresh-baked breads.

The photos posted on social media inspired city slickers to make the 20-minute drive from Asheville, through farmland to 14 Bonn E Lane, where they could also pick up a bag of cinnamon rolls, a loaf of banana bread and an Amish-built porch rocker. They might sit a spell on the wrap-around porch, joining the locals who keep the place bustling and lively with conversation.

For a good nine months after Phil Troyer and his next-door neighbor Joe Sabbag shook hands on an agreement for Sabbag and his wife Elaina to purchase the property and the store, few folks noticed. The website still said Troyer’s Country Amish Blatz, as did the popular Facebook page. Michelle and Phillip continued making those sandwiches and Asheville Foodies still waxed poetic about them.

In mid-June, an announcement of a week-long closure for renovations was posted to the Troyer’s Country Amish Blatz Facebook page. On July 1, the Fairview Town Crier published a  story with all the scoop on the sale that had taken place months before, with what to expect from the new owners and reassurances that much of what endeared Troyer’s to everyone would remain.

And just like that, on July 2, the store re-opened with a new name – Terramonga Local Provisions and Deli. The most obvious change inside the store was the bounty of fresh produce on display, 90% of it grown on Terramonga Farm and walked on over to the market.

In mid-summer, that included peaches, beans, squash, potatoes, watermelon and tomatoes. In the cooler case are Terramonga eggs, chicken, beef, pork and lamb.

Joe Sabbag says he and Michelle translate terramonga to mean the earth among us, and it was indeed the earth that brought the couple to Western North Carolina in January 2018. Joe knew the area from family vacations as a kid. He started farming in Georgia 20 years ago, and most recently the couple were in California. Seeking to have their own farm where they could raise their kids, they focused on the Asheville area, and found 50 acres in Fairview.

“We began farming right away on a small scale,” Joe says. “We started with just vegetables, then added sheep in 2020, then chickens, and then pigs and cattle.”

Joe frequently walked over to Troyer’s to get a sandwich and a cold drink and became friends with his neighbors. Three years ago, Phil Troyer asked Joe if he might know someone interested in buying the store. Joe connected him to a couple, but the deal did not progress. “I told Phil that if he didn’t sell it in the next year or so, I’d try to save enough money to do it myself,” Joe explains. “He didn’t find a buyer, I was able to save the money and two weeks before Helene, we shook on it.” He got the keys the week after Helene devastated Western North Carolina. Though he says the hurricane  ‘did a number’ on the farm, Troyer’s was spared.

“I always admired what Phil and Bonnie did, and their loyal customer base. It’s less of a risk to open something already established so we kept the Troyer’s name for a while, and slowly slipped in some Terramonga product. We timed the name change for when the Crier article would be published.”

Also seamlessly slipped in was general manager Valerie Kopshina, who had never been to Troyer’s until her interview with Joe a couple weeks before she started in the store in January. Three months later her husband Max came on board; both of them are graduates of the esteemed Culinary Institute of America, but she says that Troyer’s/Terramonga is the model the couple envisioned for a place of their own one day. “Simple food done really well.”

The sandwiches are made on one of four fresh-baked breads – sourdough, potato, multigrain, rye – or customers can purchase sliced meat and cheese by the pound, a loaf or two of bread, and make their sandwiches at home.

Most leave the sandwich magic to Michelle and Phillip, though all seven employees pitch in on everything. The number one seller is the Custom Deli, a build your own from two meats, a cheese and toppings of choice. The Reuben and The Rachel tie for second place – the former is corned beef and aged Swiss on toasted rye with sauerkraut and house-made thousand island, and the Rachel is turkey pastrami and smoked Swiss on toasted sourdough with cole slaw, spicy mustard and horseradish sauce.

The newly added Maximus made a smash debut thanks to its maximum construct – cherrywood smoked ham, roast turkey, roast beef and provolone on potato bread with lettuce, tomato, onion, pickle, mayo and Max sauce.

Customers tend to stick with what they love, including Joe. “When I went in today to get my sandwich, Phillip and Bonnie told me they had named it the Joe Schmo – it’s roast beef and Swiss on sourdough with lettuce, onions and banana peppers. I don’t expect to see it on the menu.”

The sweet baked goods that have tempted customers for years also remain – cinnamon rolls, banana breads, cookies, whoopie pies – but Valerie has been sharpening her pastry chops with test runs of things like peach cinnamon rolls and blueberry-cinnamon roll bread pudding.

The dessert that is getting nearly as much attention as the sandwiches is the ginger snap banana pudding she created. “It’s a classic vanilla pudding with sliced bananas, but instead of vanilla wafers I broke up these really delicious ginger snaps we carry and put them in the pudding. The first batch I made sold out in four hours. People were coming in daily asking if I had made more. I never imagined it would be so popular.”

More about Terramonga

— Written by Kay West

Photo courtesy of Terramonga
First photo: Honey turkey and American cheese on multigrain bread
Second photo: The Terramonga team
Third photo: Ginger snap banana pudding

AIRfare is sponsored by McGuire Wood & Bissette.