Thomas’ Mt. Top Convenience has a full menu, a liquor store, and West Virginia’s best pepperoni rolls.
They say you can’t judge a book by its cover. The same might be said for convenience stores, or at least it should be for this roadside gem along the Appalachian Highway in Thomas. Whereas most quick-stops fuel their businesses through the sale of snacks and drinks, Mt. Top Convenience offers more than meets the eye.
There’s a large menu of prepared hot foods and a stocked liquor store—all in a convenience store that looks like any other but became anything but typical once Tammy and Mike Markwood and Doug and Marshall Smith bought it from the previous owners in 2003.
“We started in the convenience store business in 1994 when we owned our first one in Oakland, Maryland, not far across the border here,” Tammy Markwood says. Some nine years later, they sold that one to take over—and eventually transform—Mt. Top once they realized there weren’t a lot of places to eat in Thomas at the time.
“So we expanded the kitchen, added a huge food menu, and put in a liquor store,” she says. “We just expanded the business on every level, and the community has supported that. We have a huge Facebook following and a lot of regulars and tourists.”
You’ll find stuffed subs, like the Philly cheesesteak, Southwest chicken, Big Italy, and more. Loaded specialty pizzas are an unexpected addition, with flavors such as Buffalo chicken, Texas burger, and Hawaiian. Hungry travelers can even choose from burgers, hot dogs, wraps, paninis, and fried fish. Or if you just want a quick snack on the go, pick up chicken wings, tenders, cheese curds, mozzarella sticks, jalapeño poppers, nachos, egg rolls, broccoli bites, fried pickles, or breaded mushrooms.
“People love our pizzas and subs. We do special meatball subs every Thursday and have been for over 20 years now. We do a daily lunch special that’s really popular, and it’s something that’s not on the regular menu, like a roast beef sandwich with mashed potatoes. But I’d have to say our steak hoagie is really the most popular item. People can’t get enough of that one.”
There are also the best pepperoni rolls in the state three years running—according to WV Living readers. Markwood says they originally started making them back in Maryland.
“We’ve been making them for about 30 years altogether. We have nine different flavors now.” Each spring, they also do a popular “ramparoni” roll stuffed with that infamous, odiferous wild mountain onion, and that flies off the shelves. Want to try them? Get in line–they sell about 85,000 a year.
16105 Appalachian Highway, Thomas, mttopconvenience.com, @mttopconvenience on FB
READ MORE ARTICLES FROM WV LIVING’S SPRING 2025 ISSUE
Leave a Reply