This story was originally produced by the Keene Sentinel. NHPR is republishing it in partnership with the Granite State News Collaborative.
From the covered porch, you can hear the river running. A red, white and blue “open” sign hangs limp from the porch roof. The front windows advertise local food, local crafts and cold beer.
The summer air is steamy and still, and for a moment time seems to slow, pulling you back to an era when nearly every small New England town had a store like this, where locals could stop in for staples, little luxuries and conversation.
These days, it’s much rarer to find such a place. Some went out with the railroads, slipping into bygones. Others made it into modern times only to watch their customers trickle off to Walmart or Amazon.
But here and there, they’ve found ways to persist.
Here, tucked against Route 123A in a gentle curve of Bowers Brook, the South Acworth Village Store has been owned and operated by the town’s historical society since 2001, and is 160 years old this summer. The Acworth Historical Society and a group of volunteers known as the Acworth Community Project have kept the store up and running for the past 24.
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The shelves are lined with honey from Alstead, maple syrup from Langdon, granola made in Swanzey, peanut butter from Walpole, meat from a farm down the street and wine from Summit Winery in Westmoreland.
Volunteer Store Manager Mary Lord said she’s always hunting for new local products to add to the inventory. She’s also known to go out of her way to get area residents the products they want — even if it means special ordering Bud Light in bottles and keeping it in a back storage area for the one person who wants it.
The store serves locally famous breakfast sandwiches, mouthwatering baked goods, a cultivated wine selection and a wide variety of other items.
Seated in a booth in the back corner, Lord said the store also serves up intangible benefits for the town: a place to gather, things to do and, for the town’s older population, an aid to extended independence.
She recalls one man who couldn’t walk but would park outside each morning so a staff member could bring him a breakfast sandwich.
A neighbor woman who no longer likes to cook used to drive down every day to get at least one meal, Lord said. When she came in, staff would have the food ready with her name on it.
Although she can’t drive anymore, the woman still finds a way to get her breakfast sandwich, walking down to the store or catching a ride with neighbors, Lord said.
Owners and managers of village stores, country stores and general stores across the Monadnock Region told The Sentinel they survive on a kind of symbiosis; they’re good for the community, and the community is good to them.
If they wanted to make a lot of money, they said, they’d probably do something else.
Finding a way
Some Monadnock Region general stores still use a similar business model to their historic predecessors, with one couple or family owning the store and taking on most of the work.
That’s how things work at the Drewsville General Store in Walpole, where owner Matt Benoit is the store’s do-it-all polymath, including making all the breakfasts and dinners the store serves.
Behind the counter on a recent afternoon, co-owner Donna Martin said the couple used to drive by the store and dream about owning it. “How cool would it be if we could have that store?”
They’re now coming up on their one-year ownership anniversary, and Martin said it’s been “all fun.”
Although the store at the corner of Route 123 and Alstead Center Road is privately owned, it’s also a community effort, she said.
When the store needed four screws to hang the sign for the new ice cream parlor, a customer took it upon themself to drive to LaValley Building Supply, buy the screws, and bring them back for the store to use, Martin said.
It’s the kind of place where regulars aren’t just a familiar face — they’re neighbors, friends, and summer people who return year after year.
On Thanksgiving and Christmas, Benoit prepared dozens of bulkies to give out to people in need of a good meal and a friendly face.
And when you walk into the store, you can’t miss the colorful bulletin board with slips of paper offering pre-purchased meals, all bought by community members for use by neighbors in need.
They’re looking forward to hosting a one-year community dinner celebration Sunday, Martin said.
About 20 miles southeast, the Sullivan Country Store is also owned by a couple. Megan and Will Hercher bought the store and the adjoining house five years ago and moved up from East Boston to run the place. The store reopened in 2023.
It hasn’t been easy, Megan Hercher said. She and Will poured their life savings into the store, she explained, and they’ve worked to build connections in the community. She said they’re grateful for the support of many locals.
But the store’s position on Route 9 is a challenge. The speed limit is 45 mph, but the cars visible from the front windows fly by much faster than that — fast enough, Hercher said, that drivers may not even see the store, let alone think to stop.
The store’s proximity to other options is another obstacle. It’s far too easy, Hercher said, for people to stay on Route 9, travel a few more miles, and go to Walmart or Target in Keene instead.
That’s not a problem in Acworth, where the next place to buy anything is another general store in Alstead, six miles west on 123.
“There’s nothing else out here,” Lord, the volunteer manager, said. That helps the store get customers, but it makes hiring a challenge.
Last week, a “we’re hiring” sign hung over the coffee bar along the store’s back wall.
People from out of town don’t want to drive out to Acworth, Lord explained, and people from town can make more money working somewhere else.
“You have to either live in Acworth and not want to leave, or you have to really care about the store staying open” to want to work there, she said.
For several years after the historical society bought the store, it was entirely volunteer-run, Lord explained. But as the years passed, many of those volunteers lost energy for the project as they aged or couldn’t keep up with it anymore, and the store had to shift to paying some staff.
That balance is working for now, Lord said, but trouble getting enough workers is straining it.
“It’s a struggle,” Lord said. “But it’s worthy of the effort.”
In the historic heart of Harrisville, the Harrisville General Store is also owned by a nonprofit and run by paid staff.
On a stand by the counter, the store carries a selection of postcards bearing images of its past self.
Standing outside the Church Street store and holding the images at arm’s length, it’s a spot the difference game to see how the place has changed — different names, new additions, gas pumps that came and went — and how it’s stayed the same.
The store opened in 1838. About 170 years later, Laura Carden moved in down the street with her husband, Walter, and three-week-old infant.
As if moving with a baby wasn’t challenging enough, it wasn’t long before Carden took on another difficult task.
Historic Harrisville, LLC, an organization that works to preserve the character of the historic mill town while bolstering its economic health and vitality, was looking for someone to run the store, which it had purchased several years before and wanted to reopen.
It was a tall order for Carden, who agreed to take it on, and for Historic Harrisville. The organization typically purchases, repairs and rents out historic properties, basically as a landlord, Executive Director John Knight explained. The general store was an entirely different endeavor.
“It was definitely a learning curve,” he said of Historic Harrisville’s early days as the store’s owner.
But now things are getting down to a science, and the model — nonprofit-owned, paid staff, community-supported — is working.
“It’s a unique model, but I think it’s a good one,” Knight said.
Getting by
Seated in a shaft of sunlight coming in one of the store’s front windows on a busy Thursday afternoon, Knight opined that it’s nearly impossible to run a general store and turn a profit. Fortunately for Historic Harrisville, that’s not the goal.
“We’re not looking to make a profit here,” Knight said. “If employees are happy and customers are happy and the food is good, we’ve done right.”
For Carden, running the business “was always a labor of love” — love for the store and the community it serves.
Knight calls the store “for and by this town.” The goal, he said, is for the store to be a good place to work, a good place to sell local products, and a good place to shop, eat and visit.
The store is kept in the black by an influx of business when people pour into Harrisville for the summer season, Knight and Carden said.
As trees blossom and the air starts to warm, the town transforms from a quiet winter wonderland into a bustling summer vacationland, with adults on the prowl for good eats and local products and kids coming down from a day on the lake to buy a popsicle.
Many of those “summer people” are invested in the community and nostalgic for the store, Carden said, and staff members remember their names and favorite food from year to year.
Knight said the goal is to capture the economic boom of summertime and direct it back into the community.
“The money that comes in here stays in this community, by and large,” he said.
The store sells an abundance of local products, most of the employees and contractors who work at the store are locals, mainly from town, he said, and the store pays taxes.
In addition, the busy summer months enable the store to stay open through the relatively slow winters, Knight and Carden said, giving locals the convenience of a hometown store year-round.
“It’s such a comfort to know you can always come to this store,” Knight said. “If I need cheese or mayonnaise, I don’t have to go to Keene.”
Summertime sales help the store keep its doors open, but it still takes about $45,000 in donations annually to break even, according to Knight.
The Acworth store relies on fundraisers, too. About 45 minutes north of Harrisville on Routes 9 and 10, Acworth is a town of about 800, and the store’s fundraisers double as rare social events. Those events, typically ticketed by donation, bring dancing, community dinners, live music and festivals to the otherwise-quiet town.
Lord, who is the store’s next-door neighbor as well as the volunteer manager, points through a back window to the swathe of lawn where kids play and the pizza oven (currently under construction) stands as a reminder of delicious-smelling summer nights. In an affectionate tone, she describes making her special chili on Saturday mornings and talks about one volunteer’s band that can always be relied upon to play at store events.
Lord said the store uses the money raised from events to make improvements like adding an air conditioner to keep the store cooler in the summer. The breeze from that new feature played with her hair as she spoke.
The store is currently raising money for a new generator. Once it’s installed, Lord said the store will be the only place in town where people can go for heat and water when the power goes off.
Adapting to meet the needs of the town is part of the store’s mission, according to a statement written by resident Debby Hinman for the store’s webpage.
“South Acworth is no longer the rip roaring mill village that it once was and the store does not handle a lot of the products that it once did when a trip to Walpole or Keene required a day or more,” she wrote. “However, the store is still there, now as a community owned and run endeavor, still trying to serve the changing needs of our community. It will only survive the next 160 years if it can find a way to continue to serve the changing needs of the Acworth Community.”
Two recent grants will help the Village Store continue to do that. The store won $10,000 from the 1772 Foundation and the N.H. Preservation Alliance and $4,000 from the Acworth Community Charitable Trust. The money will be put toward replacing the store’s roof.
Megan Hercher said adapting to the needs of the town is what they’re trying to do in Sullivan, too. Behind the counter during a break between customers, Hercher said she couldn’t say for sure whether the store will survive. To get by, she said they’re trying to learn quickly what there’s need for and scale that up.
Still, she said she tries to be a yes-woman when it comes to local products. If someone comes in looking to sell their crafts, syrup or baked goods, she’s going to do what she can to make space for it, she said.
In Dublin, the general store building dates back to the 1840s. Andy and Michelle Freeman took it over in 2002, and now, like in the other general stores in the region, the shelves are lined with both essentials and local goods.
The store on Route 101 has also found a delicious and popular niche: homemade cookies. Those cookies sell so fast they limit the number buyers can purchase at one time.
The smell of the large, moist cookies in their paper bags is reminiscent of a time gone by.
Sticking around
While some other kids his age are scrolling on Instagram or getting into trouble on long summer afternoons, 12-year-old Kayden is out sweeping the porch at the Drewsville store, inside chatting with Martin, the co-owner, or sampling a little ice cream.
He said he’s looking forward to being old enough to work there. For now, hanging out at the store isn’t a paying gig; it’s just a good place to pass the day.
At the other end of the age spectrum, an older gentleman saunters up to the ice cream window with an air of secrecy — he shouldn’t be eating ice cream, he says as he orders. The woman working ice cream that muggy afternoon hurries to supply him the illicit treat.
Under the bell on the front door, Steve Bailey says he’s been coming to the store for about a decade, since moving in down the street.
For him, it’s not just about the variety of products or the convenience of the location. It’s also about camaraderie — about seeing the same faces in the aisles and at the checkout counter day after day.
The store in Drewsville has a long history, dating back to the early 1800s. The ones in Acworth, Harrisville and Sullivan have similarly storied pasts.
The rustic signs, old wooden beams and vintage interior designs make the stores’ histories easy to spot. Their futures aren’t quite so clear.
Several store owners and managers said this summer has gotten off to a slow start, possibly due to bad weather or other factors impacting the usual flow of tourists and visitors. Prices on many products are also going up. And with a seemingly endless run of new chain locations opening all around, the convenience of a Main Street mom-and-pop is losing its allure for some.
But these general stores and their customers say they’re in it for the long haul. New business models, like the nonprofit-backed approaches in Acworth and Harrisville, and the intentional community building Drewsville and Sullivan have sought to do, are keeping them in the game for now.
And for people like Kayden, the furtive ice cream eater and Bailey, the general store will always be the place to be.
This story has been updated to clarify when the Herchers bought the Sullivan County Store.
These articles are being shared by partners in the Granite State News Collaborative. For more information, visit collaborativenh.org.
