Ownership of the Owls Head General Store is changing hands.
Both the outgoing owner and the incoming one followed similar paths to this coastal community.
Maya Newsam Sousa said the sale of the building and business is scheduled to be finalized Monday, Oct. 19. The new owner will be Catie Sheehan who was already working in the kitchen this week.
But the staff and the store’s well-known “Seven Napkin Burger” will continue with the ownership change.
The General Store, located next to the town’s post office, was built in 1880 and has operated as a general store since around the 1920s.
Newsam Sousa said she decided to sell because the time commitment to run a store was in conflict with the time needed to be with her 2-year-old child.
Newsam Sousa’s ties to Owls Head run deep. Her great-great grandfather was Pete Reed and she has spent every summer in Owls Head. She was managing a bar in Salem, Mass. when she and her husband got “temporarily” laid off during the COVID-19 pandemic in 2020. They came to Owls Head and purchased the General Store.
She said the community was supportive and helped make the operation a success. The store had been closed for three years before she purchased it in June 2020.
Sheehan had been a school teacher for many years and later ran a gift shop in New York but decided she wanted out after her business flooded twice. That was timed with the graduation of her daughter.
Sheehan said her father’s family was from Machias and South Portland. She spent holidays in Maine.
Sheehan said her mother saw online that the store was up for sale while she was in South Portland. Sheehan moved quickly and negotiated the purchase.
She said she was excited by the opportunity.
“It’s my baby,” Sheehan said.
The store received national attention in 2009 when the Food Network named its burger as the best burger in Maine.
Newsam Sousa purchased the store in June 2020 from 319 Enterprises, LLC and its manager Richard Craig. That company bought it in July 2012 from Luttrell Enterprises, LLC and its member Tom Luttrell. Luttrell purchased it in 2008 from McNeilly and Maher, LLC. That company purchased it from Dale and Constance Beal in 1997 who purchased it in 1991 from Charles and Marion Stevens who bought it in 1973 from Gladys Daucett who with Capser Daucett had owned it since 1950.
The store sells groceries, gifts, and prepared foods. The store is within walking distance from Owls Head Harbor.
This story appears through a media partnership with Midcoast Villager.