Courtesy / F.O. Bailey
New England's largest sweet shop to open in former Big Al's, Rte 1 Wiscasset.
Updated: March 7, 2022
'Big Al' reflects on the end of an era, after closing his iconic Wiscasset discount store
Courtesy / Big Al’s Super Values
Al Cohen invested in "Crazy Eddie"-type commercials for his Wiscasset discount store.
The 14,000-square-foot Big Al’s Super Values store in Wiscasset is looking for a tenant, and retail pitchman Al Cohen is looking forward to being a landlord and focusing on his smaller fireworks business.
It’s been just two months since Cohen closed his shop, after 35 years in business.
But for locals and tourists alike, the loss is still felt.
“It’s the end of an era,” said David Jones of F.O. Bailey, who’s handling the lease listing and, as a Wiscasett resident, frequently drives by the store. “I said to Al, ‘You’re an icon.’”
“I’ve gotten letters from people saying their trip this year will not be the same because part of their trip was stopping in at Big Al’s twice — once on the way in and once on the way out,” Cohen told Mainebiz. “I’ve probably taken my picture a thousand times with people since December because everyone wants a picture of Big Al. And I always have a dog by my side, and everyone wants to pet the dog.”
Anything and everything
After 35 years offering “super values” on thousands of items and attracting a devoted following of locals and tourists, Big Al’s Super Values in January.
“I carried anything and everything,” said Cohen, who reflected on his time with the store, at 298 Bath Road/U.S. Route 1.
“It doesn’t get bigger than Big Al’s Super Values — I mean really big,” he says on his TV commercial. “Big selections of housewares, big selections of toys, tools, party — over 10,000 items every day, thousands just 88 cents. This is Big Al saying, ‘It doesn’t get any bigger than this!”
Click here to view an ad.
Originally from Queens, N.Y., Cohen’s family, which has been in retail for generations, eventually moved to Long Island. He and another family member started a store on Long Island and grew the business to a number of locations.
Then, “I had a major midlife crisis,” he said.
He traveled overseas for a while, then decided to go into the ministorage business. He looked for an affordable location, starting his search in New York.
“Land was going for $800,000 per acre,” he said. “I kept looking further away — Connecticut, Rhode Island, New Hampshire. I came up to Maine and I wound up buying a piece of land in Northport.”
It was 1985. A couple of zigzags led him to open a mini-storage operation in Boothbay, where he lived in a trailer on the side of the road.
But he wasn’t happy.
“Way before the internet, if you’re not in the yellow pages, the world doesn’t know you exist,” he said. “Sitting in the office was worse than being the Maytag man.”
Courtesy / Big Al’s Super Values
Al Cohen moved to Maine from New York City in 1985.
He liked the area, though, especially after he hooked up with a whale and seal watch tour operation to work as a naturalist.
“Being a kid of out of New York City, to be able to go out on water six days a week and sometimes walk away with $50 or $60, to me, was the cat’s meow in life,” he said.
Catalogue closeouts
A year later, he opened what he thought would be a small seasonal store on Route 1.
Instead, the store became a local phenomenon for the next 35 years It was open 10 months per year, from March to January.
“My employees loved it because for nine weeks in the winter they could collect unemployment and they didn’t have to drive to work in the worst part of the year,” he said.
A couple of years later, his wife relocated full-time to Maine, too. They lived in the trailer together for a while, then bought a condominium by the water.
“My wife worked with me every day until 13 years ago, when my grandson was born,” he said.
Much of Cohen’s inventory came from store and catalogue closeouts and auctions.
“A few things I carried all the time,” he said. “I always had stationery and toy departments. I always had stuff for Christmas and Easter. I liquidated for a lot of catalogues over the years. And I had a lot of good relationships with a lot of people.”
When he started, giant retailers such as Walmart and Home Depot didn't have a presence in Maine.
“Now I’ve got Walmart on three sides of me, Dollar General across the street, Dollar Tree a mile away,” he said.
In 2012, when fireworks became legal in Maine, he opened a fireworks store in a separate, smaller building in the same location.
Crazy commercials
Part of his appeal over the last 25 years has been his TV commercials.
“I’ve spent a couple of million dollars on the old Crazy Eddie-type ads,” he said. “I’m my own character. I’m always wearing a pair of Carhartt’s with yellow suspenders, with wildlife T-shirts. I’m wearing crazy hats. When I started I was 350 pounds. Now I’m 210 pounds. And I’m gregarious.”
Courtesy / Big Al’s Super Values
The store promised thousands of items.
Using a little handheld camera, he shot commercials on his travels, including at the Great Wall of China, Las Vegas, and Alaska.
“I check into the Holiday Inn in Anchorage, Alaska, and the lady says, ‘What are you doing in Alaska when there’s no light?’” he recalled.
He added, “Some lunatic standing out there in the winter in a T-shirt.”
He also spent hundreds of thousands of dollars to run coupons in all the local rags.
“My philosophy is, they’re not going to come in for 19-cent green beans, but they would for a roll of paper towels for free with no purchase necessary,” he said. “I’d give out 250 rolls of paper towels for two weeks. If you have the right merchandise for the right price, you do business.”
Cohen began in 3,000 square feet and grew the store to 16,000 square feet. The fireworks outlet is 1,700 square feet.
He had two different sets of customers. In the off-season, it was locals. In the summer, it was mainly tourists.
“I joined all the chambers and advertised,” he said. “I’m promoter, I’m bigger than life, and there’s these commercials I ran on TV at least twice a day. I did these in-your-face commercials, but people remember that. I did a tremendous amount of business with the tourists.”
Labor shortage
But he decided to close the store because it was getting hard to find employees.
“I was very short on labor,” he said. “Going into the pandemic I had 25 employees. This year I had 12 or 13, which meant I was doing three jobs. At 71 years old, my body was telling me I should not be doing all this physical work and driving the truck and pushing bales around.”
He added, “Being that short on labor, it was like, ‘Why am I killing myself? I could be a landlord and make a lot more money.’ That sounded more appealing to me.”
Many of his employees were with him for 20 years or more.
“The handful who stayed after the pandemic were all old-timers with me,” he said.
When he closed, most found other jobs, he added.
He’ll continue the fireworks store where, other than a few weeks each year, he only needs a couple of employees. In addition to July 4, Christmas and New Year’s Eve tend to bring a lot of business, he said.
“I’m very happy in life,” he said. “I live in a beautiful house. I have a Boston terrier who’s my constant companion and my wife puts up with my cr-p — which is even better.”
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