Small Business

Dunbar’s Grocery has served Sullivan for more than 110 years.

DEER IS

For more than 110 years, Dunbar’s Grocery Store along Route 1 has served as a convenience store and town center.

 As the only mid-sized grocery store between Ellsworth and Winter Harbor, it’s where Sullivan residents and others Downeast stop in daily to buy goods.

But just as often, it’s where locals go just to visit.

“Some people just come in to talk, and that’s what I like best about this store,” Phil Dunbar, the current owner of the store, said. He paused as a customer asked when he would be available to go hunting.

Dunbar’s Grocery was one of as many as seven general stores in the Sullivan area in the 1930s. That many stores were needed to serve the large number of workers in the quarry industry.

“Now there are only two stores,” Dunbar said, describing his store’s past, then throwing in a leading question: “So what do you think that says about the store?”

He grinned with the welcoming smile that many continue to associate with him and his store.

Now on the waterside of Route 1, backing up to Frenchman Bay, Dunbar’s Grocery wasn’t always in that spot. Its original location was directly across Route 1—until a fire destroyed it in 1938.

The store was rebuilt across the way, in its current setting. Little inside has changed since, although trees have obscured the view to the bay.

“Everything in this store is in its original condition, and I plan on keeping it like that,” Dunbar said.

Dunbar, along with his late brother Allen, bought the store from their uncle, Emery Dunbar, in 1979.

Dunbar, now a co-owner with his sister-in-law, Patricia Dunbar, is the third generation to operate the business, and hopes to pass it on to his own son and daughter.

Now 52, Dunbar started working for his father in the store when he was 10 years old, stocking shelves and pumping gas.

As a teenager breaking into the business, he always dreamed of one day owning the store himself. He saved up all of his money from working in the store, raking blueberries, and collecting bottles from the side of the road.

When Dunbar graduated from Sumner Memorial High School in 1969, he went directly into the Army. As soon as he returned, six years later, he set out to use the money he had saved to be the third Dunbar behind the store’s name: “I bought it, and my dream came true.”

Although times have changed, you would think when you step into the store that the date is still 1940.

This is one place where credit cards aren’t welcome. This is where cash, checks and a good dose of trust will get you what you need.

“I’m going to keep it an old-fashioned store,” he said, chatting over loud ring of the cash register. “I dread the day when I have to install electronic scanners.”

Dunbar’s Grocery has retained its old-fashioned aura, but the town surrounding the store is growing, like most other coastal communities east of Ellsworth.

“It feels pretty good to be a part of this small community,” Dunbar said. “And I believe that this store will always remind people of our roots.

“And as far as I’m concerned, there is nothing bad about living in a small town.

As a true-blue Sullivan man, Dunbar believes that Downeast Maine is noticeably different from other parts of the state.

“The quietness, friendliness and togetherness of this piece of Maine is what sets us apart from any other town,” he said.

“Once you cross that bridge [Hancock-Sullivan, over the Taunton River], the people just get a lot nicer.”