By JEFF EPSTEIN
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CORNISH — The Cornish General Store in Cornish Flat has been around so long, it seems like it has always been there. But the store in its current incarnation will soon be gone. The owners plan to close it at the end of this month, after running it for a year-and-a-half.
You might think their situation is no different, really, than any small business struggling to find customers in an era of big box stores and quick drive-thru everything. But general stores, of course, aren’t like that. They are for meeting neighbors, grabbing a cup of coffee or picking up a loaf of bread. And the store here does that, said Mark Abrams, who has been running the current store with Maureen Jenks since March 2017. The local community of Cornish Flat has been very supportive, he said, with “a lot of loyal customers.” But the tiny community can’t generate enough business itself, and everyone else “thinks they’ll save a buck by driving to Claremont.”
The store was completely without customers on a recent visit, with declining stocks of various household and hardware goods as it gets ready to close. The rocking chairs sat empty with no one to rock them. The checkerboard on the front porch lay fallow, the pieces unmoved in the cool breeze.
But the building’s owner, local resident Colleen O’Neill, isn’t convinced the right business couldn’t attract customers from outside the community. “I’m trying to keep the store going … It’s very important in a town like ours to have a gathering place.”
Other general stores in the region have struggled, some closing for good and others closing and reopening under new management. They all seek a way to compete with national and regional chain stores, often attached to gas stations, which draw traffic. Many cars travel between Lebanon and Claremont, and not just on river routes. Route 120, which runs through Cornish Flat, is a well-traveled route, she said. “We have to find a draw to get people to stop.”
The property used to have an affiliated gas station many years ago, but that is long gone. The current property doesn’t have tanks or the space for a gas station, O’Neill said. However, the little traffic triangle out front where Route 120 meets School Street and Upper East Road is part of the property, she said.
O’Neill runs a local listserv for Cornish Flat, and is using it, along with physical meetings, to “start the conversation” and gather interest in next steps. One early meeting was held on Tuesday and included Shirley Bladen, the previous owner of the store; she closed her business in 2013. She is retired now and has an interest in the community but will not start a new store herself, O’Neill said.
The next meeting, open to the public, is on Sept. 23 at 6:30 p.m. at the Cornish Meetinghouse. O’Neill welcomes interest from both inside and outside the Cornish community.
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