Soon-to-be grandma closing store

ROCHESTER — For 17 years, Dale Marino has always had one foot in her home life and one foot in her business, Country Essentials.

With her first grandchild on the way in May, Marino said, it’s time to take a full step in one direction and close her home decor and primitives shop, even though it's still doing well.

“I’ve had a good run, but I’m ready,” Marino said, describing the decision as both exciting and bittersweet. “With all of the good stuff happening in my life, I thought it would be a good time to walk away. I’m so excited to be a grandmother.”

Country Essentials, located at the corner of Hanson Street and Columbus Avenue in downtown Rochester, will close this Saturday. The business has been selling its inventory for 30 to 60 percent off, with items like her trademark curtains, furniture and braided rugs moving quickly.

Marino said she couldn’t have scripted a better ending, as Country Essentials still has a healthy bottom line despite the challenges of running a small business that directly competes with nearby big-box retailers and online retail juggernauts.

“When I started, there was nothing else,” she said. “Now there’s Hobby Lobby, Marshalls and the Paper Store just up the street at The Ridge.”

Country Essentials’ closure will be the fourth in the heart of downtown in as many months. But unlike Country Essentials, the preceding three closures were all due to limited foot traffic and sales.

Sherry Beaudoin closed her similar store, The Artisans’ Gallery at 22 North Main St., at the end of December. Performance Wireless closed its physical 54 South Main St. storefront at the end of January to focus on repair services. Granite State Vapor, a lounge and vape shop a block up the street at 42 South Main, shut down in late February.

Country Essentials has only been in downtown for one year, after 16 years of operation in the Lilac Mall. Marino said the move helped her showcase her inventory to a different market and “stay in the game,” as well as operate in a community to which she’s invested a lot of time and support over the years.

“Rochester’s been good to me,” Marino said. “I put my heart and soul in it, and I’m happy I lasted all these years.”

While she believes downtown “has a lot to offer,” particularly Hanson Street and its quaint cobblestones, Marino admitted she has concerns about downtown’s viability long-term. That said, Marino reiterated she views Country Essentials’ closure as going out on her own terms, and for good reasons.

In addition to her oldest son welcoming a baby boy in early May, Marino’s family is experiencing other major milestones this year. She said those milestones made it easier to decide not to renew Country Essentials’ lease when it expires at the end of this month, even though she recently uprooted the business to the new location.

Lena Burke, a Rochester resident and frequent Country Essentials shopper, stopped in at the store Wednesday afternoon for some items she planned to use to decorate candle displays and other portions of her home.

Burke said Marino is “such a sweetheart” who helps everyone, which is why she’s not surprised Country Essentials is closing so Marino can shift into grandma mode. Burke said Marino would always help her and other customers find what they were looking for, even if it meant ordering something she didn’t normally have in stock.

“I think it’s sad so many people are shopping online now that all the small stores have to close,” Burke said, expressing a desire for more shopping options in downtown Rochester.

Marino said she always considered her shoppers to be “guests who became friends,” rather than customers. There was an intimacy and warmth, Marino said, that made their relationship far deeper than the typical store dynamic. One example of this is how many of Marino's shoppers, both new and regular, would share photos of their children in addition to showing her how they decorated their homes with her items.

Marino said she was “very lucky” to forge those relationships, which will be the thing she misses most when Country Essentials shuts its doors for good. Marino said she’d like to thank all of them for making her 17-year run in Rochester better than she could have imagined.

“If it’s not too much trouble, I’d like them to know it’s been a pleasure,” Marino said.