This story first appeared in the Midcoast Update, a newsletter published every Tuesday and Friday morning. Sign up here to receive stories about the midcoast delivered to your inbox each week, along with our other newsletters.
After two months of renovations, the new owners of Searsport’s longtime grocery store are finally getting ready to reopen for business.
Jeremy and Jason Edwards, the owners of a small grocery chain that includes three other locations in Unity, Trenton and Dover-Foxcroft, purchased the former Tozier’s Family Market in Searsport after it closed last summer.
On Friday, they’ll be cutting a ribbon at 10 a.m. and finally opening to customers after they made a variety of updates to the downtown establishment.
The opening of Edwards Brothers Supermarkets couldn’t have come at a better time, coming roughly a week before Thanksgiving inevitably brings in a rush of shoppers getting ready for the big dinner.
“It’s the weekend leading up to Thanksgiving, so we thought it was the perfect time to have that as our opening day,” said co-owner Jeremy Edwards. “I’m hoping this will make it a lot easier for the community. They don’t have to travel to Belfast or Bucksport now. They can do a one-stop shop here in Searsport.”
It will also mark something of a new era for Searsport’s downtown, where there has been a resurgence of small businesses in recent years and a massive construction project has just improved its roads, sidewalks, and installed street lighting.
The revamped market also isn’t the only food retailer in town. H&H Mercantile, which just relocated to a downtown storefront in late September, sells a variety of Maine-made products, including produce, baked goods, condiments and other things.
When they first bought the former Tozier’s Family Market, the Edwards brothers had aimed to reopen it on Nov. 22 — a timeline they have stuck to.
They’ve made a variety of renovations to the store, including replacing its floors, renovating its refrigeration system and reorganizing its shelves, as well as improving and expanding its deli counter.
It will employ between 30 and 35 people, with a few of those roles still needing to be filled, including assistant manager, meat cutter, deli clerk, and bakery and cashier staff.
Store manager Nick St. Peter left Hannaford after 27 years to work for Edwards Brothers.
Employee Jeannie Orcutt, a deli department worker, is also a transplant from the Hannaford in Belfast. Several other employees previously worked there when it was Tozier’s.
“I’m anxious, excited and scared, because it’s going to be very busy, a lot of people have been waiting for this,” St. Peter said. “But it will be fun. It’s rewarding, seeing everyone’s reactions to all the work we’ve put in.”
