By ELIZABETH COMEAU
Staff Writer Sunday, January 28, 2007

COUNTRY STORES

The local country store is a place to buy necessities - and a staple of Maine culture.

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A customer walks across the deck at the D&L Country Store Sunday in Oakland. The exterior of the store, like most general stores, is adorned with signs.

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But when a customer, just back from his vacation in Greece, asked store owners Ray and Belinda Winn if they could order the specialty meat, they said they'd see what they could do.

"It took us about three weeks, but we managed to do it," said Ray Winn.

That, the Winns will tell you, is why people shop at their small store on Main Street. The squat, one-story, concrete building is tucked away near houses, its weather-worn exterior and black-and-white sign a stark contrast to the surrounding colonial homes.

"You get to know people and people get to know you," Belinda Winn said. "People come for the customer service. Absolutely."

If you live in a small town, the local country store is as much a place to buy necessities as it is a staple of Maine culture.

The Winns, and several other central Maine general store owners, said customers prefer to shop at their stores over the big-box retailers because of three simple factors: customer service, nostalgia and location.

According to Peter Thompson, president and chief executive officer of the nearly 700-member Kennebec Valley Chamber of Commerce, there are 20 or more big-box stores in the Augusta area. That figure will grow, he said, with the addition of the Augusta Crossing shopping center being built behind the Kennebec Journal in Augusta.

Several local grocery stores, such as Shaw's and Hannaford, also have reconfigured or expanded, Thompson said, providing local mom-and-pop stores with yet another competitor.

But the Winns, who have owned China Village General Store for five years, said even though there are other places to shop, their store has a varied customer base.

"We have people who come from Windsor, Waterville, Winslow and Oakland," Belinda Winn said. "We're quite a ways out here, so people come, for the most part, because they've heard about us or they like us.

'OUR OWN NICHE' IN OAKLAND

In Oakland, the owners of D&L Country Store say business has been steadily growing -- though the weather and location of a nearby Wal-Mart have made an impact on financial figures.

A large, wooden deck covered in signs for bait, deer tagging and other services greet customers when they pull up to D&L Country Store -- a beige, clapboard building on Smithfield Road in Oakland.

Dawn and Lou Vasvary, who have run D&L for 12 years, sell everything from "Jersey-style" subs to 59-cent doughnuts to hunting gear and shampoo.

"In the summer, we'll see about 400 customers a day; right now we get about 150-200," said Dawn Vasvary.

But with little to no snow this winter, the snowmobilers who normally boost D&L's business in the winter just aren't around, she said.

While Vasvary was reluctant to share their annual earnings for the last five years, she did say that, for the most part, they've seen 2 percent to 4 percent growth each of the 12 years they've been open.

"One year the weather was really bad and our sales were down," Vasvary said. "The Rome General Store opened up again, too, and then a new store opened up down the road," she said. "What's nice is that we each sell different stuff and we each have our own niche. That's why so many of these stores can stay in business-- we each do something better than the other."

FAITHFUL IN FAYETTE

Others, such as Fayette Country Store owner LeeAnn Miller, attribute their loyal customer base to nostalgia.

Located on Fayette's main road through town, the Country Store looks a like an old farm house on the outside with light gray shingles, a covered entrance and two, large windows flanking the front door. To an outsider, the store is the first clue -- other than a small sign just over the town line -- that you're indeed in Fayette.

The inside of the store is filled with the smell of coffee and crammed with shelves piled with subs, pizza, magazines and Maine memorabilia.

A booth in the front window -- often stuffed with schoolchildren doing homework after school -- and one in the back near the wall of beverages, serve as the store's only seating.

"This is a piece of the way things used to be," Miller said.

That nostalgia is one of the major reasons country stores continue to thrive, she said.

Miller, who has owned the store for seven years, said that despite larger competitors, she's seen healthy growth over the years -- with her annual earnings more than doubling since she opened in 2000.

"It's a big thing for people to come in and chit-chat with our employees," Miller said. "We've been here a lot of years and people know us, and we know them."

As for the location, she said, if you live in Fayette, the closest major store is in nearby Jay. "It's at least 10 miles to that," she said.

And, adding new items to the store shelves doesn't hurt either, she said, citing pizza and sub sandwich delivery as instrumental to the store's growth.

Cindy Pinkham, a Fayette Central School employee, said she prefers shopping at country stores for one reason: "They just have a little bit of everything you need. It's not overwhelming."

'GUNS, WEDDING GOWNS AND BEER'

At Hussey's General Store in Windsor, the sign outside advertising "guns, wedding gowns and beer" doesn't even scratch the surface of the store's goods.

Hussey's is a place where road cone orange hunting gear sits next to intricately beaded wedding gowns, and where books and records such as "Honky Tonk Piano" are sold for $1.

It's also the kind of place where an actual "shotgun wedding" took place under the Hussey's sign last summer complete with a groom dressed in plaid flannel and soon to be father-in-law armed with a shotgun.

"We've been experiencing marginal growth every year," said store manager, Bill Ricker.

On average, Ricker said, the business grows at least 8 percent to 10 percent each year. "We've had years that are better than that, but that's about average," Ricker said.

"We've got our customer base far enough out here that we're protected from the big stores, and more and more people are moving out here," Ricker said.

The store, just down the road from the Windsor Fairgrounds, is located across the street from where the store was first established 84 years ago at Windsor's four corners.

"Like the owner Jay Hussey says, 'we've always been a general store'," Ricker said. "The Wal-Marts of the world are trying to be more like us."

Eunice Noyes, who works three hours a week at Hussey's, said she's been coming to the store as both a customer and worker for 43 years.

"Things in the store have changed," said Noyes, of Jefferson. "But the people who own the place are still nice people. I enjoy being here because a lot of people I know get their groceries here, too."

Elizabeth Comeau -- 623-3811, Ext. 433

ecomeau@centralmaine.com