Twelve miles from Tallahassee, a pleasant drive out Centerville Road, beneath a majestic canopy of oak trees and Spanish moss, is Bradley’s Country Store.

Their trade, plain and simple, is selling the best, old fashioned, country smoked and fresh sausage money can buy.

If you’re accustomed to city shopping, you’ll be in for a surprise when you drop in. Bradley’s, a modest building, stands today just as it did when it was erected in 1927. There are no gaudy signs or flashy counter displays. What you’ll find, instead, is the same honest, rustic simplicity and dedication to quality that was the keystone of the operation Grandma Mary Bradley began in 1910, when she sold sausage from her own kitchen.

That tradition has endured through four generations of the Bradley family and still attracts thousands of customers from around the area, and indeed from the entire Southeast. And that tradition has been recognized on the National Register of Historic Places since April 1984.

Country Smoked Sausage – a Family Tradition

Over the years, Bradley’s customers have come to expect the finest quality country sausage and other products. For example, Bradley’s also produces such country rarities as hogshead cheese, liver pudding, cracklings, coarse ground country milled grits, and corn meal. Bradley’s is also a supplier of Burger’s Ozark Country Cured Hams.

The famous sausage is put on the counter only after careful selection and slaughter of the hogs, and the application of a special seasoning. Bradley’s uses only top quality hogs, buying from producers they know and trust, occasionally supplementing their supply by buying prize 4 – H hogs from the local fair. After processing, the sausage is cut into 75 pound lots and seasoned with the time - proven recipe developed nearly a century ago by Grandma Mary Bradley, containing black pepper, red pepper, sage, and salt. No preservatives or additives are in Bradley’s Sausage. After the sausage is seasoned, some of the meat is stuffed into natural casings and then hung in the smokehouse to cure using the smoke from oak and green hickory. Bradley’s Homemade Smoked Sausage will give you a delicious, age – old taste experience that will remind you of mornings in your Grandma’s kitchen.

Testimonials to the high quality and deliciousness of Bradley’s sausage are not difficult to find. Some say they could not begin a day without it. The mixed clientele, which has included governors, judges, farmers and city – folk from all over the area, tends to reinforce those testimonials.

In addition to serving those who come to the store, Bradley’s ships its smoked sausage and grits as far away as California and Maine, as well as supplying a number of Tallahassee families and businesses with meat to be given away as special gifts at Christmastime.

Bradley’s Country Milled Grits originated in the 1920’s when Mr. L. E. Bradley, Sr., built a barn - type structure near his store to house the grits mill he had just purchased. He began milling corn into grits and cornmeal for his business and his family. The corn was ground fine to medium for cornmeal and extra coarse for grits. This coarse grind for the grits required a longer cooking time but allowed the true, robust flavor of the corn to come through. Soon after, local farmers and sharecroppers began coming to the "mill house" on Saturdays to have their corn custom ground for their own personal use. Saturdays became "corn grindin’ day" as farmers came from miles around by horse and wagon to bring their corn to the only mill in the area. Mr. Bradley also continued grinding grits and cornmeal to offer for sale in his country store. Three generations later, Bradley’s Country Milled Grits are still ground in the same building, in the same way they have been for over three – quarters of a century. We hope that as you enjoy these old – fashioned grits, you will also be savoring the flavor of a time gone by.