“I can buy in onesies: I can order one item,” declared owner Peter Drinkwater of the merchandise he sells at the Winter Harbor 5 & 10. It’s not that he doesn’t carry a whole lot, it’s that he doesn’t have room to stock everything his customers want. And those customers range from local fishermen and their families to summer residents and retirees, artists and tourists. Drinkwater caters to each of their needs. He’ll even sell you a long-stemmed chocolate rose.
The store is a delight. Drinkwater stocks an incredible number of items, set up in aisles rising high in the air like a supermarket rather than the spread-out, waist-high counters of the old 5 and 10s most of us remember, the place where our mothers bought household staples and we went to buy them presents or to check out toys, tools, goldfish, turtles, or (forbidden) make-up.
The concept and the stores go way back. Frank Winfield Woolworth, encouraged by his wife and sales from a nickel counter at his dry goods store, opened his first “Great Five Cent Store” in Utica, Michigan, in 1878. Later that year, he opened another store in Lancaster, Pennsylvania, and called it, Woolworth’s 5-and-10 Cent Store. By 1918, he had opened one thousand 5 and 10s. They dominated the hearts of small towns all across this country, lasting until people stopped shopping on Main Street and moved to the mall.
Few such stores remain. The closest thing most Mainers have to the old 5 and 10 is Reny’s. The Reny’s stores are great, to be sure, but there’s a difference between the quality of some of Reny’s merchandise and that of Drinkwater. Reny’s often buys job lots of leftovers and seconds or irregulars. Drinkwater buys only first quality and keeps the price down, whether it’s Muck boots for lobstermen, a small rubber ducky for the tub or large one, complete with hat, for the swimming pool.
Drinkwater, a Livermore native who bought the store in 1989, stepped into his new job well prepared, having had 13 year’s experience as a K-Mart manager. His wife, Sandra, a Winter Harbor native, helped smooth the path of their new ownership of the 5 & 10, which had been part of the Main Street scene since 1972.
A year or two after taking ownership, the Drinkwaters reconfigured the whole store. They had to. “There was only a single pegboard, used on both sides, but when you put a peg hook in one side, you couldn’t use the other side,” Peter Drinkwater recalled. They kept the old floors and pressed tin ceiling and retained the charm of the 1923 building. By removing the old wooden counters and shelves, they were able to add to and display more products.
The range of merchandise on display at any given time (it changes seasonally) is remarkable. Drinkwater said he achieved such variety by listening to his customers. “Whatever they asked for, we got for them. We try to carry a lot of stuff people aren’t going to find at the major retailers.”
For example, at the Winter Harbor 5 & 10 you can find watches and clocks with a local lighthouse, either Winter Harbor or Prospect Harbor, on the dial and tide clocks custom-made for local harbors. And where else could you find something as simple as a well-designed white teapot for just $9.99, as well-priced as the generously sized kitchen spices at only $1.09, or as alluring as the decoratively painted lobster buoys at $19.99, hanging temptingly outside the store, just waiting to trap a tourist?
Drinkwater has devoted an entire room to sewing notions. He uses the former meat locker to cut curtain shades to size. In the kitchen section he carries all you’d need to get you through a two-week visit. And what could be more useful than a Toilet Rebuild Kit or a uniquely shaped carpenter’s pencil sharpener from the hardware section? For children you can buy a toddler’s plastic wagon for $4.99 or order a Radio Flyer wagon for considerably more. A bug jar with magnifier costs $3.29. You can even find romance novels, if you look hard enough.
What makes the Winter Harbor 5 & 10 unique, though, isn’t quality or quantity, but the lengths to which Drinkwater will go to provide service to his customers.
He is willing to order just about anything within reason and will pack it and ship it for a fee. A authorized UPS shipper, he charges and extra $5 for going down the street and buying lobsters from a dealer, packing and shipping them to his summer clientele in the off season. He stocks insulated boxes and has a freezer full of ice packs, on which he makes another couple of dollars.
One time a summer customer called him and said she wanted to put on a clambake at her winter house in Florida. “She wanted red hot dogs for hors d’oeuvres,” he recalled; “buns, too.” So off he went and bought red hot dogs and New England style hot dog rolls, and shipped them along with the lobsters and clams. The party was a great success.
But it’s not just food Drinkwater will get you: he recently ordered a customer a New York City-style wire grocery-carrying cart, then took an order to wrap, sign a card and ship a thousand-piece jigsaw puzzle of Campbell’s soup cans stacked in the form of the American flag, taken from a 1910 embossed tin advertising sign. Showing off a 530-piece spherical puzzle in the shape of the globe, he said, “We have one of the best puzzle selections in Hancock County.”
There’s a price for coming up with such an interesting conglomeration of merchandise: hard work. That includes attending a lot of gift shows. Drinkwater’s biggest one is in Louisville twice a year. As he spoke, on an iffy, murky late April day, he had just returned. “I go in spring to do Christmas shopping and in October to do spring-summer stuff,” he said. He goes to Boston and Portland a couple of times a year and said he’s off at a gift show almost every weekend in January and February.
His logo reads: “Winter Harbor 5 & 10 … Everything from A to Z (Aspirin to Zippers)” and it isn’t far off. Where else could you find a large selection of well-made baskets; camera, computer, school, and office supplies; lamps, chimneys, extension cords, and light bulbs; land and cell phones; curling irons and blow dryers; fans, bug juice, and black fly jackets, pancake griddles; and ice cream, popcorn, and coffee makers?
Drinkwater said that rather than having big sellers, he sells a little of everything. “In summer I sell hundreds and hundreds of tee shirts, [with silkscreen images of] lobsters, Winter Harbor, Corea, Prospect Harbor,” he said. “In winter I sell snow shovels and galvanized shovels to empty the coals from stoves to galvanized trash cans.” He thought some more, then added, “One thing I sell a lot of in summertime: I sell a lot of New York Times. People have to have their New York Times.” And in summer, when, he said, “The population picks up ten-fold,” he sells “tons of bug spray” and touristy stuff.
His assistant, Robyn McLean, added, “You’d be shocked at how much candy kids and teenagers go through. The older, retired people buy essential items: cards, watch batteries, gift-type stuff. They’d rather do it here than go to Ellsworth.”
It’s that combination of having so much on hand or available by special order, a friendly attitude, and superior service that keeps those customers loyal, and to add to the services Drinkwater recently became a licensed real estate agent. He explained, “In summer, people are always coming in and saying, ‘Where can I find a realtor?’ And there aren’t any in downtown Winter Harbor.”
You won’t find any penny candy, canaries, goldfish, or turtles either; but in every other way, this modern evocation of the old 5 & 10 fills the needs of those who live in or visit the Winter Harbor area, and then some.
To reach the Winter Harbor 5 & 10, call 207-963-7927, go to www.WinterHarbor5and10.com.