The days of Maine’s locally owned food markets aren’t behind us just yet

Hard Telling Not Knowing each week tries to answer your burning questions about why things are the way they are in Maine — specifically about Maine culture and history, both long ago and recent, large and small, important and silly. Send your questions to eburnham@bangordailynews.com .

The news that two out of the three locations for Tozier’s Markets — small family-owned grocers that for nearly 50 years has had stores in a number of eastern Maine towns — was tough to hear but not surprising.

For decades, there’s been a move away from locally owned businesses like groceries, appliance retailers and hardware stores toward most of them being owned by large corporations.

People who grew up in the previous century probably remember specific things about their local grocery. The sound of the screen door slamming shut in the summer. The penny candy, carefully selected and paid for with a quarter. A particular owner or employee who was kind and generous (or memorably cranky). Homemade doughnuts. A tagging station if you got your deer during hunting season. A cup of coffee and the newspaper, first thing in the morning.

The Bangor Daily News archive is filled with decades of advertising for stores like that. In more recent years, locals have mourned the loss of such stores as Huber’s Market in Wiscasset in 2018, Bob’s Kozy Korner in Orrington and Anderson’s Store in Stockholm , both in 2023, and now the Tozier’s closures in Searsport and Brewer.

Today, large corporations own the majority of the grocery and convenience stores in Maine, including Hannaford, Shaw’s, Walmart, Circle K and On the Run.

And yet, there are still lots of notable exceptions. In Bangor, for example, there are thriving small locally owned markets all around the city, including WeeBeez, which runs markets on Court Street and in the Capehart neighborhood; the Corner Store on Hammond Street; Joe’s Market on Garland Street; and Fairmount Market, a stalwart of the Fairmount area. They’re not full grocery stores, but if you need milk, bread and eggs — and maybe a pizza and some beer — they’ve got you covered.

Brewer still has at least one locally owned grocery store left: Paradis Shop n’ Save, one of a handful of Shop n’ Save-branded stores left in Maine after Paradis sold its other two locations in Fort Kent and Madawaska to Hannaford.

Shop n’ Save used to be ubiquitous throughout Maine, before Hannaford began buying up locations in the 1990s and 2000s. How many people still refer to the mini-mall at the corner of 3rd and Union streets in Bangor as where Doug’s Shop n’ Save used to be? That said, there are still a few left, in towns including Gray, Bingham, Litchfield and Old Orchard Beach.

Similar family markets and grocers exist in plenty of towns around the state, like G&M Family Market in Holden; the Levant Corner Store; Friends and Family Market in Ellsworth; Belfast Variety, Wentworth Family Qwik Stop and Jack’s Grocery, all in Belfast; Tobey’s Grocery in South China; Southend Grocery in Rockland; Swan Lake Grocery in Swanville; and IGA grocers in towns including Orono, Calais, Southwest Harbor, Bath, Houlton and Presque Isle, to name just a few. Maine-owned chains like Tradewinds and Freshies have also found success with their individual business models.

When you look at it that way, it doesn’t actually seem as though the days of locally owned groceries and markets are entirely behind us just yet.