It may be easy to miss the Lake Martin Pecan Company as you drive U.S. Route 280. It’s a large, corrugated metal building, with the word “PECANS” displayed across the front in large blue letters. A few pickup trucks sit scattered around the gravel parking lot. The building fits right in with the usual scenery of the highway, and if you didn’t see the three or four customized banners and signs planted across the front lawn, you might drive on by without a second thought. But you’d be missing something.

The Lake Martin Pecan Company is one of those places beloved by the handful of people who know about it. It’s a secret, spread primarily through excited recommendations from family and friends, who talk about it as if it were gossip. The company has no website, but it does have a Facebook page, which was created and is managed by a customer who enjoyed the store so much, she felt a need to spread the news further than the word of mouth could go.