Bar Harbor gearing up for tourist season

BAR HARBOR – Watching another year of seasonal activity come and go in this coastal tourist town is like witnessing a theatrical performance.

The production that specifically comes to mind is “Brigadoon,” a Broadway musical about a Scottish village that appears out of the mist for one day every 100 years.

Bar Harbor’s busy period is not so absurdly brief or rare as that of the mythical Highlands hamlet, but the annual springtime ritual of preparing for the four-month summer tourist season highlights the fleeting nature of much of the town’s economy.

This time of year, carpenters and caretakers are working feverishly like stagehands the night before a theatrical premiere. They can be seen bustling in and about the village shops.

Seasonal business owners have re-emerged from their winter hideaways to take down the sheets of plywood that protect their storefronts from ice and snow and to get their shops ready for merchandise. Cafe tables have been refinished, wobbly bar stools repaired, colorful signs repainted and rehung, and stockrooms swept clean.

Kris Donohue, owner of the Cottage Street eatery Donohue’s, said Saturday that though Memorial Day generally is considered the start of the season, she opened her business on April 26. To get ready, she repainted the walls of her restaurant, hung up new art, and made sure all of her kitchen and bar equipment was functioning properly.

“It’s about a month on either end [of the summer season] to close and to open,” she said.

Though she doesn’t get a lot of customers in late April or early May, Donohue said opening earlier helps her staff of a dozen or so employees get up to speed before the crowds appear. Being open also helps her pay rent on the restaurant space and satisfies a desire she shares with her employees to resume work.

“Everyone’s looking for work in the spring,” Donohue said. “I’m ready to see the town open up again.”

Britt Hulbert, owner of the Main Street retail shop Jekyll & Hyde, was in her store Saturday with several employees sorting through items and getting them ready for the first day of business. Knapsacks were arranged in orderly piles on the floor and dozens of small boxes were stacked on glass display cases.

Hulbert said she travels out West in the winter to buy the jewelry she sells, but orders other items such as knives or motorcycle accessories through suppliers. After she gets back to town, it takes about six weeks to get everything inside the store ready for opening day, she said.

Hulbert said her target opening date is May 15, when the first cruise ship is scheduled to show up in Frenchman Bay.

“The cruise ships are coming earlier all the time,” she said.

The impact of increasing visits from cruise ships has had a significant impact on Bar Harbor’s tourist business, according to local merchants.

Donohue said she is opening for lunch a half-hour earlier this year than she did in 2004 to accommodate the early arrival time of the liners offshore. According to Hulbert, the high number of ships that visit Bar Harbor after Labor Day, when most families have returned home but when the fall foliage is peaking, has resulted in many businesses staying open through October. Ten years ago, many seasonal businesses closed in early September, she said.

“People are definitely staying open later” into the fall, Hulbert said.

Hulbert said she expects to have a good season, despite concerns about gas prices or ongoing military conflicts overseas. Donohue also said that she expects to do better than she did in 2004, when spikes in gas prices and election-year jitters may have combined to keep some would-be tourists at home.

“I think by the summer they’ll be used to the [higher] gas prices,” Donohue said.

Some Bar Harbor retail businesses are open year-round, such as Sherman’s Bookstore, Cadillac Mountain Sports and Rite Aid, but only a handful of the dozens of restaurants in town are open during the winter. Each spring, at least one store has relocated down the street from where it was the previous year and, often, one or more have vanished altogether.

Catherine Higgins, manager of Stone Soup on Main Street, said the new store had its grand opening in early April. Like other local merchants, she had to repaint the shop space and make sure various carpentry projects were complete before she could open her door to customers, she said.

Stone Soup, which sells toys, clothing for infants and toddlers, and other items, is intended to be less seasonal than many other retail shops in town, according to Higgins. She plans to stay open through the end of December, after the cruise ships have left and the tourists have gone home, and to reopen again early next April.

“We also serve the local population,” she said.