Bucksport businesses unite to boost downtown

BUCKSPORT – Three downtown businesses have joined forces to bolster their operations and to promote the Main Street area as a destination.

George MacLeod has run MacLeod’s Restaurant for more than 20 years, Andy Lacher has owned BookStacks for more than a decade and Andy Tyne, the newcomer to the group, began operating his Broadway Rickshaw business just two weeks ago.

MacLeod and Tyne will partner – using the rickshaw two-passenger tricycle called a pedicab – to provide a lunchtime delivery service from the restaurant’s luncheon menu, which has been revived after six years.

Meanwhile, Lacher and MacLeod have developed a deal offering discounts to each other’s customers. Spend 10 bucks or more at BookStacks, get a 10 percent discount when you eat at MacLeod’s Restaurant and vice versa.

When other downtown merchants heard about that deal, they wanted in on it and now several other Main Street businesses will offer the same type of downtown discounts.

“People like the idea,” Lacher said. “And they also like the idea that we’re doing it.”

Lacher heads the Downtown Bucksport Business Association and for years has been on a soapbox promoting this type of interbusiness cooperation.

This latest effort got started with MacLeod’s decision to bring back the lunch service that he had discontinued. The service had been very popular and was one way to attract people to the downtown area, but six years ago, MacLeod said, he just wasn’t able to continue to do it alone.

But he always kept the option open and kept looking for ways to make it work. When a former manager approached him about rejoining the restaurant staff, the wheels were set in motion.

“Even though we were closed, people kept coming,” he said. “There would always be people there shaking the doors. The question I always get from people is ‘when are you going to open for lunch?”‘

MacLeod began offering lunches 11:30 a.m. to 2:30 p.m. Tuesday through Saturday last week, and the response so far has been good.

Then Tyne approached him and said, “Have I got a deal for you.”

Tyne initially looked at the pedicab as a way to transport his children to school each morning. But while walking along the waterfront one day, he got the idea of offering a rickshaw service to passengers on the cruise ships that now come regularly to Bucksport during the summer.

With help from the Incubator Without Walls program and from Bucksport’s Economic Development director Dave Milan, Tyne began the service two weeks ago and has kept pretty busy.

He has provided tours, including a steady stream of chatter about the history of the town, for five passengers from a cruise ship, done an anniversary ride and a lot of ice cream runs.

“My first fare was three teenage boys, a total of 560 pounds, and I got a $10 tip,” he said.

He works for tips mainly, and he said that’s better than quoting a rate.

“It makes me work harder to get a good tip, not just the pedaling, but also with the history,” he said.

The lunch delivery service will be available Thursdays and Fridays. Lacher sent out an e-mail notice to his association members and the response has been good.

“The day the e-mail went out,” Tyne said. “I got a call from the Jewett School asking if I would deliver up there.”

MacLeod said the collaboration among the businesses is just one way they can work together to build interest in Bucksport.

“This is something we can do ourselves. We didn’t need a big marketing campaign,” he said. “We keep hearing about what we can’t do, but the economy of Maine is right here in small-town small businesses. This is something we can do.”

He echoed a common theme in Bucksport where the town has made improvements to the infrastructure in an effort to attract the traffic from Route 1 to turn left and visit the downtown.

“We’ve got the most scenic view around, and we know we can work together to get people to look at Bucksport as a destination,” he said. “We can get them to stop here and experience Bucksport and not just pass through it.”

rhewitt@bangordailynews.net

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