This iconic Missouri general store is back open for summer after fire gutted it
An iconic Missouri general store has reopened for business just in time for summer after a blaze destroyed the store back in December.
“Scott’s Iconium Store has risen from the ashes and has become The Iconium General Store,” said shop owner Shannon Tucker, in a GoFundMe post. “Thanks to all of your help, the Tucker family has persevered and has peach floats flowing, pizzas baking, beads and claws for sale, and more coming online every day.”
Shannon Tucker , who owns the store with his wife Nikki Tucker, reopened on June 1, serving ice cream before quickly expanding to sell other items like soda and milk and most recently their fresh pizza from their pizza oven.
“There’s no way I could possibly thank everybody enough,” Shannon Tucker said.
Scott’s Iconium General Store— a popular pit stop for Scouting groups that’s located just under two hours southeast of Kansas City at 12770 NE Highway C near Osceola — was gutted in a fire back on Dec. 22.
The store is known for serving Peach Nehi ice cream floats, saying they serve sometimes up to 1,000 floats in a single day.
The shop had several volunteers come at the end of May to help with mowing, spreading mulch, moving furniture, setting up product and other things needed ahead of their reopening date.
“It was ridiculously amazing,” he said, adding several volunteers helped his contractor finish up a building. “...before long (the contractor) had four or five dads just up here, all in their own trade, finishing this last building out. I mean they knocked it out in a day and a half instead of a week.”
Shannon Tucker’s goal was to be up and running by the time Scouts start camping at the H. Roe Bartle Scout Reservation on June 1. While he met the goal, the mission got harder after his wife was in a UTV accident May 7 where she broke over 20 bones and had a collapsed lung. Nikki Tucker returned home from the hospital just before the shop’s opening, and spends the day sitting and talking to customers, according to Shannon Tucker.
Next steps for Iconium
The current set up for the general store is temporary for this summer, and Shannon Tucker has plans to build a permanent building at the end of the season in August.
“I want to give it the respect that I think it deserves,” Shannon Tucker said, “I needed more than three months to do that. let’s get an ice cream trailer and let’s get a, a portal mobile home kind of thing, and let’s get some of these buildings in here and get ‘em hooked up and serve the customers what they need.
Right now, there’s an ice cream stand, a double wide mobile home which sells non-food items and a grocery hut, as well as a pizza oven in the back. Selections will be expanded in the coming weeks, according to Shannon Tucker.
Scott’s Iconium General store is open every day between 8 a.m. and 9 p.m.
