Eastport’s only grocery store will close in early September, which means residents of the country’s easternmost city will have to drive 40 minutes to Calais for fresh produce.
The R&M IGA, Eastport’s sole grocery store, will close on Sept. 3, according to an employee who answered the store’s phone Friday morning. Merilyn Mills, the store’s owner, announced the closure Wednesday on Facebook.
The closure follows a string of local grocery stores that have shuttered in recent years, including the only food shop in the rural Aroostook County town of Ashland closing in May. Many of the family-owned grocery stores that once covered the state have been replaced with Hannaford and Shaw’s, among other large corporations.
The IGA isn’t the only major Eastport business to close this summer. In early August, the city’s only pharmacy lost its license and shuttered operations. Residents will now have to drive to Calais, about 28 miles from downtown Eastport, to reach a Walmart for prescriptions and a Tradewinds for groceries.
“It’s a fixture — it’s been here forever,” Eastport City Manager Brian Schuth told the Bangor Daily News Friday morning. “It’s definitely a problem. There’s a lot of stuff you wouldn’t be able to get at the Family Dollar, and the next closest place is Calais.”
The city’s Family Dollar store doesn’t sell fresh produce.
Mills, whose family has run food stores in Eastport for four generations, is retiring. She tried selling the business before shutting down but hadn’t found a buyer who would maintain the grocery store, according to the social media post.
“I grew up at the R&M IGA working with my father and my uncle and, like my family before me, I have spent many years running the store through good times and bad,” Mills said on Facebook. “In preparation for this day, I have had many conversations with potential buyers. Unfortunately, for a variety of reasons, none of them have yet come forward to proceed with a purchase.”
Mills, who did not respond to an inquiry from the Bangor Daily News, said it was a “difficult decision” to close the family business.
The store is not currently listed for sale.
“It makes you feel differently about the character of the community if there wouldn’t be a fully functional grocery store here,” Schuth said. “It’s certainly our hope that somebody is going to continue to run it. The city will be keeping an eye on it.”
The grocery market made headlines in May 2021 after an employee who was sick with hepatitis A handled food at the deli. Customers who ate food from the deli during that time period were recommended to get a hepatitis A vaccine.
Eastport Chamber of Commerce is coordinating with the Department of Labor and Washington County Community College to support the store’s roughly 20 employees, Schuth said. Staff learned of next week’s closure on Wednesday, according to an employee who answered the phone Friday.
Facebook posts inquiring about the closure generated hundreds of comments.
“It’s more than sad — it’s infuriating!” one user wrote. “There should be a way to keep a decent grocery store available to the people in the region. In the city we call this a food desert! Federal funding would be a help!”
Many users were concerned about how the city’s older residents would manage without a grocery store on the island. Others worried about the employees, who were given short notice of the closure.
“What are people going to do? Especially people that don’t have a car,” another commenter wrote. “This is awful.”