Courtesy / Daigle Commercial Group
A cheerful ambience greets customers at the King Ro Market in Round Pond.
Updated: December 9, 2019
Midcoast country store with a history hits the market, at $695K
Courtesy / Daigle Commercial Group
The King Ro Market in Round Pond dates back to 1874, serving customers through the eras of shipbuilding, granite-quarrying and coastal schooners right up to modern-day Music Mondays and barbecue festivities. The village institution is on the market for $695,000.
A country store that’s been an institution since 1874 in the coastal village of Round Pond has gone on the market.
King Ro Market, at 1414 Route 32, is listed by Daigle Commercial Group for $695,000.
The turnkey business is well-established and has an apartment and second-story deck above. The apartment has two bedrooms with an open loft. The market has table seating, pizza and bakery ovens, and two local docks.
The post-and-beam structure totals 5,324 square feet. The 1-acre site has ample parking for the store and apartment.
The property quietly has been on the market, but Daigle broker David Costello told Mainebiz the marketing has been ramped up.
“There’s been quite a bit of interest,” he said. The potential buyer pool includes both local and out-of-state people, he added.
Post-Civil War entrepreneur
Round Pond is part of the town of Bristol in Lincoln County. It’s primarily a lobster fishing village that numbers about 300 year-round residents and grows to as many as 2,500 people in the summer.
The owners are husband-and-wife BJ Russell and Lori Crook. Russell traces the store’s existence back to around 1874, when a man named Alexander Yates built it.
“He owned all the property around that area,” Russell said. “I believe he was there about 10 years. He sold it to a fellow named J.E. Nichols, who had it around 40 years.”
Nichols was very much an entrepreneur after the Civil War, Russell explained. He and his brother owned the docks in Round Pond, and Nichols developed a fair amount of property in the area. He also got into the pogie business, which was big in Round Pond at the time.
While Nichols owned the store, a young man named Artel Bryant went to work for him, Russell related. Bryant eventually took over ownership and ran the store for the next 40 years or so. When he passed away in 1968, his wife ran the store for the next year or so, then closed it.
Sunday drive discovery
In the meantime, Russell’s parents, Bill and Fran, discovered Round Pond in 1965, when they were taking a Sunday drive with their children. They came upon a big house that was once a hotel called King Ro Manor, but had been abandoned.
“My mother had to have it,” he said with a laugh.
The name “King’s Row” refers to a section of Main Street where houses were once owned by ships’ captains, Russell explained.
The couple opened King Ro Manor as a home for veterans in 1966 and also moved their family in.
The shuttered King Ro Market was next door. They bought it and, after some renovations and upgrades, opened it in 1971.
Bill and Fran Russell operated the store about 20 years. BJ Russell left home to go into the restaurant business.
“Then I was ready to do something else, so I approached him about coming to work here,” BJ said.
In 1991, BJ bought the business from his parents.
But Bill stayed involved, opening the store every morning. “In spite of the sale, Bill still rose early every morning to brew the coffee that would be ready when he opened the doors at 6 a.m.,” according to the obituary written when he passed away in 2014.
Both Bill and Fran, who died within 18 days of each other, were remembered in the obituary for their warmth and generosity. Fran would visit newcomers to the village with something freshly baked from her kitchen to welcome them. A celebration in their honor drew 450 family and friends, in a community that numbers only about 300 year-round residents.
Music Mondays
Since 1991, BJ and Crook have put their own stamp on things. That includes his restaurant experience, which brought prepared items like baked goods, pizza and sandwiches. They instituted Music Mondays, which brings in local musicians and well-known acts like Livingston Taylor, and generally results in a festive atmosphere with listeners spread out on the front lawn, said Crook. Several years ago in the off-season they started offering Friday night dinner specials.
Through the years, said Russell, the market was part of the industries that dominated the village, which mainly had to do with fishing, shipbuilding, granite-quarrying and shipping.
“The store was very much part of all those eras,” he said.
In 1991, when he and Crook bought the store, they found artifacts stored on the second floor such as furniture inscribed with the name of the post-Civil War-era entrepreneur, J.E. Nichols.
“In that era, everything came by ship and J.E. Nichols owned the docks where the ships came in,” he said. “So you’d go to the store, tell him what you want, he’d order it, it comes in by freight ship, come to the store, and that’s how you received your goods. That was a true general store.”
Russell also has a store journal that dates back to 1881, with records of all the transactions in that era.
“There’s a lot of history here,” he said.
Courtesy / Russell/Crook Family
Music Mondays are part of the draw, for residents and visitors, to King Ro Market.
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