When the Summit General Store announced its permanent closure last fall, the Coventry establishment may have seemed like another casualty among a dying breed of grocers.
The store, doing business in a building constructed during the late 1800s, had served as a mainstay for more than five decades in the rural western Coventry village of Summit, where there’s no such thing as a quick trip to the supermarket.
It eventually became a favored destination for cyclists and pedestrians on the Washington Secondary Bike Path, where it marked the trail’s western terminus.
But as it turned out, the closure wasn’t the end of the road for the general store. In October, Susan Quattrocchi, formerly the owner of Susie Q’s Place ice cream shop in Scituate, announced that she had purchased the Summit General Store with plans to revitalize the property.
Now Quattrochi is at work restoring the old building’s interior with tentative plans to open the business, Suzy Q’s Summit General, in July.
As its name suggests, Quattrocchi first and foremost plans to draw from her own business background but will hold onto some of the country store charms that attracted locals and visitors for decades.
The vision, Quattrocchi said, is “an ice cream parlor with a full deli, and a Harley-Davidson museum.”
Quattrocchi doesn’t plan to offer the full range of supermarket options and hardware that were sold at Summit, nor chicken and horse feed – aspects of the former general store that would require a lot of heavy lifting to stock inventory, she says.
“I’m in the restaurant business, the ice cream business, so that’s what I’m going to bring,” Quattrocchi said. But she’s not completely letting go of the grocery side either, with plans to sell basics such as milk, bread, eggs, and cat and dog food.
The classic general store, meanwhile, carried those staples and more – a necessity when many community members, particularly in rural areas, had few means to make regular trips out of town for food or other necessities.
In a way, these stores played a role that the modern-day convenience store seeks to emulate, says Scott Bromberg, CEO and president of the Rhode Island Food Dealers Association.
The association doesn’t track the number of local general stores in the area, but Bromberg says none of his member organizations would fall under this classification.
Membership does include five to 10 “small-market” grocery stores, Bromberg said. But over the years, many of these grocers have buckled under broader industry trends.
“In the supermarket industry, there’s been a lot of consolidation, at least on the larger scale,” Bromberg said. “I think it’s been a tough time for mom and pops post-COVID.”
Still, some trends work in favor of small grocery stores, he says. While many have difficulty hiring and maintaining sufficient staffing, these small grocers are often “in smaller towns and have a loyal customer base” to count among their strengths, Bromberg said. And while some issues worsened by the pandemic – such as inflation – continue to hurt grocers, Bromberg says that small businesses have benefited from a renewed push to support local stores.
That’s been the case at Ma & Pa’s Inc., which operates as Ma & Pa’s Country Store in the Hope Valley in Hopkinton, where co-owner Larry Walsh said business is “better than ever.”
The store hasn’t been immune from industrywide staffing issues, Walsh says, and it has weathered recessions and other stressors throughout its 46 years. But it boasts a healthy stream of returning customers, many of whom became regulars during the pandemic.
“We closed for 13 months and did curbside only ... and we had people from all over South County,” Walsh said. Some customers made trips over the Connecticut border as well.
That level of business continued when Ma & Pa’s reopened in full. Walsh credits the success partially to the “one-stop” model of the store, which offers a popular lunch menu, a deli, a full meat department, fresh produce and seafood.
Also, Walsh believes the appeal of the general store goes beyond convenience.
“I think people want to be able to have a personal contact, rather than the big-chain thing,” Walsh said. “It’s a social thing also. My son is the manager, and he knows everybody by name.”
While Susie Q’s Summit General won’t offer quite the same range of general store options, Quattrocchi says she’s excited to welcome the community back to the property. Her ice cream store in Scituate attracted a dedicated following among motorcyclists in particular.
This clientele isn’t the only reason for her planned Harley-Davidson museum. Quattrocchi’s father, a Harley-Davidson dealer, fostered a love of collectibles from a young age.
And while Quattrocchi in ways surprised herself with the decision to buy and revitalize the old Summit General Store, she quickly realized she’d made the right decision.
“I saw it online and I was just curious,” Quattrocchi said. “The energy in that property, it just grabbed me ... I thought I was out of the restaurant industry until I walked through those doors and thought, ‘I’m home again.’ ”
