Cloudy’s: The Store Cloudcroft Has Been Waiting For
Bre and Dylan Kincaid’s new market offers fresh groceries ‘up the hill,’ 7 days a week.
Dewy red grapes glisten under the light of a tiered open-air refrigerator, surrounded by a luxurious display of rainbow bell peppers, jalepeños, and locally grown varieties of mushrooms, unaware of their status as very welcome guests on the mountain.
There are ribeyes and New York strip steaks, butchered in-house. Beautifully bottled olive oils, all-natural pastas and sauces, gluten-free cookies and pretzels, vegetarian staples, and specialty items you wouldn’t expect to find anywhere up the hill, let alone a short walk from your front door.
Welcome to the village’s newest addition: Cloudy’s Market.
Bre and Dylan Kincaid opened Cloudy’s in the heart of the village on May 1 after moving to Cloudcroft in October the previous year.
“There are so many times that I forget to get a jalapeño down the hill,” Dylan chuckles. “That’s what I’m ready for.”
For Cloudcroft, it’s been a long time coming.
There’s a former grocery store on James Canyon Highway that locals and regulars remember well. Before James Jackson filled it with his award-winning brisket, it was the Mountaintop Mercantile, a grocer, bakery, and sandwich counter at the center of town.
For years, the closest full grocery store was a round-trip of at least 30 miles down the mountain to Alamogordo. An hour in the car, minimum.
Now, we’ve got Cloudy’s. Less than two weeks after opening, the Kincaids say business is steady, and they are expanding their offerings.
Meet Your Neighborhood Grocers
Bre and Dylan spent 15 years in Houston, and for the last five of them, they were ready to leave. They looked at Tennessee, North Carolina, Colorado, Utah, Idaho, and Washington. They searched Zillow in places they’d never been, trying to map the shape of a life they could feel but couldn’t quite name.
“We always wanted mountains,” Bre says. “And smaller.”
Dylan had roots here — he lived in Cloudcroft for a time growing up, and it had always felt like home. His grandfather ran a Napa auto parts store on Burro Avenue, and some of Dylan’s clearest childhood memories are of running up and down the boardwalk with a handful of discarded keys.
When the opportunity finally came to move back last year, it felt like a homecoming. Cloudcroft, as Dylan puts it, “worked out better than expected.”
Back in Houston, they’d kicked around the concept of a small neighborhood bodega for years — their nearest HEB was only five miles away, but the traffic made it a 20- or 30-minute ordeal either way. They never found the right place or the right moment.
“I’m glad we did it here,” Dylan says.
The confirmation that Cloudcroft needed what they had in mind came before they’d even committed to the idea. On a scouting trip to the village to look at the house they hoped to buy, they took their dogs for a walk through the neighborhood.
One neighbor (now, a friend) stopped them on the street after noticing their Vizsla, Ivy, and mentioned how badly a grocery store was needed. Later that same day, chatting with folks at the grand opening of the Osha Trail Depot, another local said the same thing. Twice in one afternoon, without asking.
“We’re like, okay,” Dylan says. “Let’s do this.”
What Cloudy’s carries reflects what the Kincaids believe about food. “Whole food ingredients, responsible sourcing, things that are going to be good for you,” Bre says.
“We don’t want to price anyone out,” Dylan says, deliberately targeting a range comparable to what you’d find down in Alamogordo.
The Kincaids are excited about items that pique your curiosity.
Dylan hands a bag of shishito peppers “on the house” to some Sacramento Hotshots who come in to buy some salmon filets and an onion. He recommends blistering and serving them with a mayo-and-soy dipping sauce.
“We want to be somewhat of a discovery place,” Bre says, eying a bright pink, intentionally upside-down package of silky peanut butter with a cartoon pony on the label. Ingredients: organic peanuts and salt.
As for their plans? “We’ve got a two-year lease,” she laughs. “We’re here.”
Grab-and-go meals are in their future: salsas, sandwiches, things you can pick up on your way somewhere.
Farther out, they’re imagining ready-made items, take-and-bake dinners, and a deeper bench of locally sourced beef, produce, and anything else the Sacramento Mountains provide.
Bre also creates content as a photographer and videographer.
Cloudy’s has a growing social media presence, and they plan to publish cooking videos under the banner of “Cloudy’s Cooks,” walking viewers through how to use the things on the shelves. You can even follow the market on TikTok.
Learning the Mountain
The first weeks of business have been a real-time education in the logistics of running a small mountain grocery. Getting distributors to route up the mountain is not a given. Some products arrive needing to be packaged in-house.
Sourcing eggs, good bread, and quality dairy from the right providers is still a work in progress. Neither of them frames it as hardship. It’s more like learning the terrain.
“Everything has its minor challenges,” Dylan says. “But the bigger picture, they’re really nothing.”
Since moving to Cloudcroft, the thing that has surprised them most is how steadily the village reminds them they made the right call.
“I feel like we’re reminded almost every single day in some small way,” Bre says. “That’s surprising to me. I didn’t expect that.”
Dylan doesn’t want to leave anymore. When they lived in Houston, they’d travel somewhere and he’d immediately start lobbying to move there. Now he doesn’t even want to go to Alamogordo.
“I just want to stay here,” he says. “This is where it feels right.”
Cloudy’s Market is open from 10 am to 6 pm, 7 days a week, on Mexican Avenue, next door to the Osha Trail Depot. Follow them on social media for hours, inventory updates, and whatever is coming next — including those cooking videos.
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