Timeless shopping

By Michael J. DeCicco

It’s easy to experience a real general store no matter where you live on the South Coast.

The Head Town Landing Country Store in Westport is smaller and newer than many others like it in the area, but has its own unique design.

It’s a convenience store that features an ice cream stand deck leading to a spacious backyard with ample seating and a view of the Westport River. Owner Rory Couturier said it’s where kayakers can dock at the river shore and walk up to the store’s back deck for ice cream or the interior for coffee, donuts, and muffins, and where cyclists often stop for refreshments in the middle of their rides.

He and his wife Kathy bought the property, which had been a general store since the 1950s, in 2008 for its “quaint New England feel by water’s edge,” Rory said. “I always wanted to own a business with a water view.”

The store is now a place for penny candy, homemade donuts (available Thursday through Sunday) and pastries (available seven days a week). It also houses a full Bliss Brothers ice cream creamery, and a full range of Green Mountain and Jim Organic coffees.

The deli side of the business offers Dels Lemonade, hot dogs, and sandwiches that are pre-made daily. The convenience store side of the business offers local eggs, milk, honey, and New England syrups.

“I’ve lived in Westport my whole life,” Rory reflects. “For 25 years, I was manager of a big box store in Boston. Now I’m working seven minutes from this house where locals love to gather. They can relax by the water. This is such a special place.”

He said local people have always been his biggest customers, and his biggest sellers are his ice creams and his pastries.

He sells ice cream year-round, but sales increase remarkably over the summer. Meanwhile, his donut and pastry treats sell quickly both during the week and the weekend. “On weekends, I sell out of donuts and pastries by 10 a.m.,” he said.

Frequent customer and longtime Westport resident Estelle Gifford confirms why it’s a popular stop for local people. “I love what they did with the store,” she said. “It’s no longer dark and dingy. I love the ice cream and the hot dogs. Rory said he’d turn it into a ‘destination’ store. And he did that."

Little conveniences

Wilbur’s General Store has been an important destination in Little Compton for over 120 years. Established in 1893 by C.R. Wilbur, the store has been not only the shopping hub of this unique village, but also an essential gathering place for catching up with old friends and meeting new ones, said manager Linda Wetzel.

Here too local customers are the key to a general store’s success. “We’re a local store,” Wetzel said. “That’s what makes the store special. It feels like a community.”

Wilbur’s carries hardware, gifts, toys, clothing, groceries, specialty foods, and a great deli counter with restaurant-quality meat. Wetzel started there as a bookkeeper in 1999, became manager in 2003, and she and her husband brought it in 2018.

“We carry just about anything you’d need,” Wetzel said. “We pride ourselves on the fact you can get anything you might want. Local people don’t have to leave town to get what they need.”

Among the store’s biggest sellers are its apples, she said. Her husband owns Little Compton’s Old Stone Orchard, so the store sells 12 varieties of apples, from Granny Smith to Red Delicious.

Also as a result of the pandemic, the stores tarted a delivery service, and in June it started curbside pickup.

In fact, she said, since the Covid pandemic struck, grocery sales have gone up. “People want to shop in a small, local shop,” she said. “Our grocery business has definitely increased. We carry a lot of groceries from steak to frozen vegetables to cereal. I’ve increased the amount of produce we stock because of our level of business since Covid.”

But she is proudest of the fact the store is also where “the employees always will try to help the customer, pack their grocery bags, carry them to their car. We’ve built a relationship between us and the customer. Summertime customers came in with a sense of nostalgia, telling their children ‘That’s the same candy shelf where I bought candy here back in the day.’ Generations have come here.”

Central market

The centerpiece of Marion’s village center, the Marion General Store, has been serving the local community for 47 years, but that’s only if you don’t count the total of 224 years the building housed its previous incarnations as a Congregational Church Meeting House and a variety of retail shops.

Three years ago, the town’s Sippican Historical Society assisted owner Jack Cheney, 72, with funding to restore the building exterior and renovate the interior to modernize it and add more space.

As a result, Cheney noted proudly, “We brought in a more diverse selection of products. And we now have call-in orders and have a curbside pickup area on Main Street.”

He credits his daughter, Whitney Cheney Wynne, with running the store’s increased social media presence and coming up with many of the store’s new product ideas that have led to a continuous flow of local customers of all ages.

Store manager Angela Rossi noted, however, that one feature the store has kept since it opened 47 years ago is the charge register that allows patrons to put purchases on an ongoing tab.

“It goes all the way back three generations,” Cheney added. “I see people here I’ve known 63 years and their children and grandchildren.”

Rossi said not only are local customers still a big part of the store’s business, but the Covid crisis has drawn even more of these patrons into the shop. Since the pandemic shutdowns started, she said, the locals have shopped the General Store even more for their regular groceries.

“Everybody in town comes here,” she said. “It’s the heart of the town, close to the post office, the boatyards, and the beach. Since Covid, many came in here for their meat and other groceries. They shop here because it’s small and local and they don’t want to chance catching Covid in a larger venue.”

The store now boasts a full line of groceries, meats, liquors, bakery items from Sunshine Bakery in New Bedford and pastries from a local baker, and a full deli that offers cheeses, sandwiches, soups, and salads for the lunchtime crowd. And there’s “Patty’s Corner”, where, pre-Covid, customers could sit at tables, eat their lunch or sip their coffee, and use the store’s WiFi.

Cheney said contractors replaced the windows, floor, ceilings, and walls with modern material that resembles the building’s original style, and they added energy-efficient lighting, windows and doors, and installed easier-to-access beverage and milk coolers.

“I’m very satisfied with the work and the changes done here,” he said. “It was first rate.”