Coffee, conversation fuel downtown Searsport

SEARSPORT – Caffeine and conversation.

Ralph Harvey, a retired bank manager active in the civic life of Searsport, believes those are two of the most important ingredients in creating a healthy community.

And until Coastal Coffee opened, they were in short supply, he said.

Harvey, 66, managed Merrill Trust branches in Searsport and other area towns in the 1960s and 1970s. Customers often were more likely to approach him in the coffee shop, he said, and coffee shops were great places to get caught up on business and municipal news.

Since retiring, Harvey has served as a selectman for more than six years and now is chairman of the town economic development committee.

Harvey recently met the new SAD 56 superintendent and told her he held his “office hours” at Coastal Coffee.

Al and Abby Putnam opened their business earlier this year. The couple studied the town before making the move.

Putnam, a Houlton native and University of Maine graduate, had been working as an engineer. But when the firm he worked for folded, he and his wife decided to try their hands as entrepreneurs.

So one cold January morning, Putnam sat in his car on the side of U.S. Route 1 and counted the cars that passed through Searsport between 7 and 8 a.m.

There were plenty, about 600 during that hour. In the summer, as many as 30,000 cars pass in a day, he said.

Those numbers, and the news that the Grasshopper Shop would open next door, tipped the scales toward the Searsport location. Coastal Coffee opened in February.

Judging by the customers who come through the door during a recent midafternoon visit, Putnam has succeeded.

Bill Terry, the town assessor, walked in for a cup of coffee, as did Jim Murphy, owner of the Cronin & Murphy Fine Art gallery across the street and Joe Calista, a real estate agent from the down the street.

Putnam began pouring their coffee before they reached the counter, having memorized their orders. That’s important, he believes, and it’s something he stresses to his staff.

Putnam figures about 200 customers frequent his shop, many of whom are able to swing in and park along the street in the morning to pick up a cup of coffee and a muffin on their way to work. Coastal Coffee opens at 5:30 a.m.

Still, he knows his business is tied in part to tourists, and specifically to those visiting the marine museum.

“We’re one of the first places you see” as tourists travel east from Augusta, he said. “We live and die by the museum,” referring to the Penobscot Marine Museum across the highway.

Wearing an apron with the “Lobstah!” logo from the museum’s current show, he took time to suggest a hike in the Blue Hill area to a young couple from Brooklyn, N.Y., and bantered with an older couple headed back home to Massachusetts after a visit to Bar Harbor.

Museum director Mac Deford said Coastal Coffee boosts attendance because tourists are more likely to make an impulse visit if they can also grab something to eat.

Earlier this year, when a liquefied natural gas terminal was being considered for Sears Island, boxes were placed around town to gather comments on other uses of the island. The overwhelming number of suggestions came from the box at Coastal Coffee.

Marcia Markwardt, owner of the Carriage House Inn, stopped in to order muffins for the guests she was expecting later that day.

Using her visit as an example of the interdependence of small businesses, Putnam said with a smile, “Not to quote Hillary Clinton, but ‘it takes a village.'”