HOULTON, Maine — Aroostook County small businesses, offering interactive events or services like carpentry, painting and roofing, are in hot demand and entrepreneurial newcomers are finding they have customers lined up before the moving boxes are even unpacked.
“Tradespeople hardly have to advertise,” said Johanna Johnston, executive director of the Southern Aroostook Development Corp. “There is work for them because we don’t have tradespeople.”
On the flip side, many niche shops are struggling because there are not enough in-person shoppers to sustain their business.
“We have a small population. Businesses really have to think about their target market and if the business can be sustained,” Johnston said. “You have to ask, ‘What do people want?’”
Nine businesses closed in Houlton last year, as downtown traffic plummets and more people rely on online shopping. For the surviving downtown shops, several owners discovered that some of the best business growth is coming from interactive and pop-up events.
The businesses that closed included a crystal and gem shop, a knife seller, three restaurants, a tea and herb shop, a gaming shop, a tie-dye business, and a tattoo artist.
To add to that list, downtown’s Country North Gifts announced in December a liquidation sale before a 2025 closing.
Johnston points to shops like Serendipitous Dragonfly and Tulgey Wood Emporium offering activities such as digital photos with Santa, boba tea pop-ups, and dedicating a month to events like dream weaving and oracle readings.
“You can go online now and get something really cheap as far as gifts go,” she said. “But you can’t get an experience online.”
A downtown embroidery business, Serendipity Embroidery, has a solid work calendar of three-plus weeks of orders ahead. Owner Erica Burkhart credits the 2024 eclipse with part of her initial success that is bringing repeat business.
A New Limerick-based carpenter, Calvin Episcopo, who moved to The County in December from Martha’s Vineyard, completed a bathroom ceiling and crown moulding project his first week in town and has been busy responding to calls for estimates ever since.
Interior and exterior painter Louis Taylor, who owns All the Colors, moved his thriving business from Delaware to Ashland in October and he said he has been getting calls from Mainers four and five hours away.
Still, many brick and mortar closings did not equal the end of the business. Rather, most transitioned into home-based work, mobile food offerings and selling online or at area farmer’s markets. Lotus & Leaf tea and herb shop, for example, flourished after leaving a Market Street location.
Owner Randi Farrar started hand delivering her special boba teas to area banks, businesses and even a few residences several days a week.
It happened a bit by chance after some of her downtown regulars mentioned they missed her tea. Farrar got her home kitchen certified, her well water tested, bought a 40-slot cup holder, a larger vehicle and started delivering her specialty boba iced teas. Some days she makes multiple Houlton runs from her Hodgdon home.
“It just went crazy,” Farrar said.
So crazy that she’s opening a drive-thru tea business, Corner Perk, in nearby Hodgdon across from her home, slated to open on Feb. 3.
As part of an initiative to support and grow local businesses with growth potential, the Southern Aroostook Development Corp. is reviewing applications for $30,000 in grant funding for three businesses. Several of the applicants are one-person trade operations that need equipment to expand, Johnston said.
Helping these businesses expand brings jobs and a larger tax base to the area, she said.
“We are working to entice businesses here,” Johnston said.
