Country stores are iconic parts of New England’s landscape, but these nostalgic local businesses are facing some difficult economic challenges. Like the Canterbury Country Store, which is closing this month.
The store is in a bucolic setting.The squat, white building is nestled in Canterbury’s rural hills, and it looks out on a town green with a gazebo. It’s a stone’s throw away from the town hall and public library. Inside, there’s a window shared with the town’s post office.
Jane and Dave Balshaw have been running the store for nearly three years, though it first opened at this location in 1945.
“Country stores before supermarkets really were the place where you came and got your food and your provisions and your guns and your ammo and everything that you needed in your community,” Dave said. “Because there was nowhere else to go.”
But the store has struggled to survive under several different owners over the last few decades, as they’ve had to compete with big box stores and grocery chains nearby. Still, the couple decided to take over when the last owner closed.
“We loved this country store and we loved the community,” Jane said. “We just wondered if we could turn this around and make more of a community gathering space.”
The Balshaws added a seating area where people could order prepared food and have a cup of coffee. They showcased local artists’ work on the walls and held community events. But one of the basic elements of a country store – selling groceries – quickly became one of their biggest challenges.
Large food distributors – which supply cheap, basic products to grocery stores – told them they’d have to pay a $10,000 delivery minimum. For a store their size, that wasn’t feasible. Other, more affordable distributors said their supply trucks couldn’t travel on Canterbury’s rural backroads.
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Before big box stores, country stores were the main place to get groceries or a cup of coffee for miles. But now, the country store model faces a number of economic challenges.
Smaller food distribution companies would deliver to the store, but they only carried specialty items. Dave says locals started calling the store “bougie.”
“Yeah our cheese was a little more bespoke.” Dave said. “The reality of being a small provider of food is you're going to get niche products at something like this, and niche usually doesn't mean inexpensive.”
That was a challenge for some local customers who just wanted basic grocery items. But they did like the prepared food the couple made, which ended up making almost half of the total sales for the business.
Jane would wake up at 4 a.m. to bake. Dave would make lunch takeout orders. They say work was exhausting, and all-consuming.
They began to rely on tourists, who liked buying the local specialty products and artwork. People from out of town became about 50% of their customer base.
But last summer, usually a lucrative time for retail, that customer base dried up. Canadian tourists didn’t come to the store in nearly the same numbers they usually did.
State officials say Canadian tourism declined in New Hampshire by 30%, and with fewer customers and the long hours required in food prep, the Balshaws decided to close the store.
“We're just kind of listening to our bodies and saying, ‘Okay, you guys are a little older.’ It might be time to not slog through another year at this and just kind of exit on top,” Dave said.
Looking back on their time at the store, Jane says she’ll remember the customers and their conversations.
“We've had an awful lot of fun,” Jane said.
The Balshaws says they hope someone else will be up for the challenge and continue the country store after them, but no one has signed on yet.
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