Legendary Northeast Kingdom retail outlet opens below new management

Ray Sweeney used his teenagers finding out to minimize meat from Jim Currier. 

Jim Currier was far more than 20 many years into his ownership of Currier’s Excellent Marketplace, a staple in Glover because the early 1900s and the only grocery store in this Orleans County town of 1,100. 

Now Sweeney’s 46, and he and his spouse, Jessica, have taken up the mantle.

The Sweeneys now personal the nation keep, which they bought very last December just after Currier and his relatives decided to pack issues up following extra than a half-century of organization. The shop reopened Might 28 right after months of renovations. 

“I just required to fundamentally make sure that this community didn’t eliminate anything that they favored and loved so a great deal,” claimed Sweeney, who also owns the C&C Market in Barton. “That’s the principal explanation I jumped in.”

Currier’s current market was legendary in the Northeast Kingdom, recognized statewide for its taxidermy-laden inside, woodsy trinkets and quality groceries. 

That version of Currier’s has mainly been gutted. 

“The complete detail is manufacturer new from leading to base,” Sweeney said, apart from for the front door, the wooden floors in the front of the building and an outdated wood doorway on the beer cooler. 

The selfie-magnet stuffed moose and other taxidermy parts ended up bought final summer by an additional region retail store owner, Josh Olney.

Lights, heating programs and other elements of the keep necessary upgrades following so many several years, Sweeney claimed, and so did substantially of the devices inside it. Code compliance issues included about $150,000 to the roughly $1 million the Sweeneys spent using over the market place, he reported.

For the most element, the store’s offerings are the same as its predecessor, these types of as the Canadian Angus beef Currier carried. 

“It’s just on a bigger scale,” he mentioned.

The wine selection has developed and so has the beverage area. There is a Vermont reward shop inside. And the setting up now has air conditioning. The market even now sells some simple components equipment, and Sweeney wants to provide ammunition in the foreseeable future. Like the aged keep, he mentioned, Currier’s will once more act as a weigh station for hunted activity. 

For many years, Currier’s stood as the hub of Glover’s community, and given that opening day, it seems like the new owners have succeeded in continuing that tradition.

“It does [seem like a new hub],” reported Randy Williams, president of the Glover Historical Society and chair of the town organizing commission. “Currier’s was … 1 of the previous-faculty marketplaces, a mixture of anything — hardware, looking materials, fishing provides as properly as groceries and a amazing custom meat department.”

The Sweeneys, he claimed, have stuck by that ethos.

“I imagine he’s pretty considerably hit the nail on the head in this article with his opening foray,” Williams claimed of Ray Sweeney. “He’s demonstrated that he wants to be small adequate to be person-friendly, to be incredibly neighborly in how he does it. He’s constantly walking about and conversing to shoppers, as is his wife, Jessica.”

Williams and his wife, Betsy Day — herself a previous Glover Historical Modern society president — visited the shop on its opening working day. They stopped following doorway, in which Jim Currier nevertheless lives, and chatted with him out entrance. 

Is this all bittersweet? Williams asked Currier.

“He stated, ‘Not in the least. I like it,’” Williams recalled.

Sweeney, a lifelong Glover resident, reported he’ll be investing most of his time at the new retail outlet about the next six months. Ultimately, he’ll break up his time amongst the two shops. 

“I was a part of it 30 yrs ago, and I’m a larger component of it now,” he stated. “We’re extremely lucky.”

Currier’s Top quality Sector is open up from 6 a.m. to 9 p.m. Monday by way of Saturday, and from 9 a.m. to 6 p.m. on Sunday.