Stop & Go Shopping

by Glenn C. Koenig, Webmaster at Town Wide Mall

Maynard, MA - Shoppers in town have gained a new bookstore to browse in, but are losing a grocery store, just over the border in nearby Acton.  The bookstore, Felixology, opened their new store in downtown Maynard just last week.  Meanwhile Stop & Shop is closing it's current location at 100 Powder Mill Road at the end of business on Thursday, December 12th.  The company is opening a new store, just up Route 27 at Kelly's corner, the following day (see further details, below).

A New Bookstore

Felixology officially opened with a ribbon cutting ceremony last Friday, December 6th, at noon.  The event was attended by Maynard Select Board member Mike Stevens, Representative Kate Hogan, and Senator Jamie Eldridge, among others.  The store is the first bookstore to open in town after being without one for years.

After the ribbon cutting, proprietor Elizabeth Parise showed the crowd various features of the store while others browsed the shelves and enjoyed snacks and refreshments.  In the photo here, she is showing a cozy play space for small children, situated below a display table.  There is also a dedicated section for local authors.

The store is named for Elizabeth's son, Felix, who passed away from cancer in 2018, at age 29.  There are some details on the store's web site, http://felixology.com  (Note: the site does not yet seem to have an SSL certificate, so some web browsers may issue a warning to users when attempting to load it on their devices.)

The store is located at 2 Walnut Street, at the corner of Main Street, just around the corner and down below the Boston Bean restaurant. The phone is 978-298-5716 and the email address is [email protected]  It is open most days from 10 AM until 5 PM, with later hours on Friday and Saturday.

Grocery Store Moving

Visitors to the Stop & Shop grocery store at 100 Powder Mill Road in Acton were greeted with largely empty shelves over the last week or so, as workers moved most of the remaining stock to a new location.

A large sign facing the parking lot heralds the change to visitors to the shopping center. The word among employees of the existing store is that the landlord for the shopping center will seek another grocery store to occupy the space at that location.

The new store is located at Kelly's Corner, also in Acton, replacing the K-Mart that closed there a few years ago. Kelly's Corner is the junction of Main Street (Route 27) and Massachusetts Avenue (Route 111), where construction on the intersection is ongoing, in order to provide new lanes of traffic flow.  The location is just down the road from the Roche Bros. store. The new store is significantly larger than the existing location and is set to carry a wider variety of products.
The Acton Exchange, Acton's on-line news feed, published a story about the new store back in November:
https://www.actonexchange.org/news-brief-stop-and-shop-opening-nears/
Although technically not within Maynard's borders, the existing Stop & Shop location has been a convenient stop for many Maynard residents traveling along Powder Mill Road, as they drove to and from Route 2 in Concord.  There are only two full service grocery stores within Maynard's town limits, Market Basket, at Maynard Crossing, and the Assabet Co-op Market, at 84 Powder Mill Road.

(Full Disclosure:  I am a member of the Assabet Co-op Market, and the bookstore has agreed to carry copies of both my books for sale there.)

Comment

I don't often cover news of local shops comings and goings as they happen surprisingly frequently, and the time I have to devote to publishing news is limited.  I am a strong adherent of the "shop locally" movement, but we live in a world of trade-offs. That means that it may take some effort to change our ways.
Where people shop has had a significant impact on local communities over the last few decades.  As people shifted their buying habits to favor larger stores and online merchants, many downtown areas have been left with more empty storefronts, with some types of merchandise no longer available locally.
As with many things in life, there are pros and cons to everything.  Shopping online provides an extremely wide choice of products, as local storefronts just don't have the room to stock every brand, model, color, or style of product the way huge warehouse based supply chains can.  Online sales also have the advantage of economies of scale and lower overhead compared to small shops, so they can sometimes offer lower prices, although assuming that their prices are always lower can be a mistake.
However, the loss of local ad revenue generated by local shops along with the loss of classified advertising has bankrupted many local newspapers.  It has also shifted the tax burden in local communities, and reduced face to face interactions between residents who used to frequent downtown shops and areas.
This reduction in personal interaction has lead to increased isolation and loneliness in general.  In addition, ordering online has become more risky as products now more often lack the quality we expect from web page descriptions.  Without being able to try on clothes, shoes, etc. or try the features of some device with our own hands, we are often left having to return items that don't fit us or can't meet our needs.  Sadly, much of what we return can't be sold again online, and thus ends up in landfills.
Admonishing people to "shop locally" may help revitalize downtown areas and improve the quality of life, but doing so will take a concerted effort to accept slightly higher prices, somewhat fewer options, and involve slightly more patience and inconvenience.  Next day delivery and free shipping are very tempting, but these "features" risk making shut-ins of us all.
I chose to move to Maynard, partly because it has a significant downtown area.  I never buy books online, but rather order from local bookstores and then go to pick up my order in person.  Usually I have to wait three days for a book to arrive, but I'm never in such a hurry that I need a book more quickly than that.  I'm glad to know that, as far as books are concerned, I can now actually walk to a bookstore to shop there.
(Note: I don't often check books out of the library because I'm a slow reader and typically write in the margins as I read.  I depend on the Library as more of a community resource, offering meeting space to gather, and events to attend.)

About the headline

When I first thought of this headline, my intention was a play on the words "Stop & Shop."  Why not "Stop & Go" instead?  The idea was that we have to stop shopping at the grocery store at 100 Powder Mill Road (now that it's closing there), but we can now "go" shopping at the new bookstore.  But now, reading it again, I realize that it could also be read more as a command to "Stop, and then go shopping."  Alas, I didn't intend to encourage anyone to simply do more shopping!  I didn't include a comma after the word "Stop" but that left it ambiguous, none the less.  Language is a funny thing, that way.

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