Launa Picard grasped two large window cords and raised the blinds before dawn one recent morning at Larry’s Pastry in Ellsworth. Out of habit, she turned the “Sorry, We’re Closed” sign to face inward even though the bakery wasn’t due to open for another hour. Early birds are seldom turned away.

At 4 a.m., the family-run bakery stood out starkly in the dark. The modest white building, with the founder’s first name angled in bright red letters on the facade, looks straight out of a Norman Rockwell painting. It is, in fact, a scene that is rapidly vanishing from the American landscape.

Larry’s Pastry will fry its last doughnuts, bake its last butter rolls and decorate its last gingerbread men on Friday, ending a half-century run as Ellsworth’s neighborhood bakery. That means customers will no longer see the faces and hear the voices of those who have known how they take their coffee, whether they like plain or glazed doughnuts, greet their children by name and other personal tidbits for years.

Hancock County District Attorney Michael Povich has gone to Larry’s since he was a boy. After finding out he was diabetic, the DA had to give up the bakery’s doughnuts and decadent pastries, but he still gets coffee there.

“It’s not just the product people go in there for,” Povich said, “it’s the people, it’s the banter.”

“They are just the most generous people around,” he continued. “There is going to be a big vacuum in this town when they’re gone.”

Founded by Larry Pelletier, in 1955, the bakery has evolved into a family. Not just because three of Pelletier’s children, Launa, Leo and Butch, have continued his legacy, sometimes making personal sacrifices to keep the business going, but because the place has become an integral part of the greater Ellsworth community.

“A good product, a fair price and a kind word are never going to go out of style,” Picard remarked with a wink. Her feet barely touched the floor as she scurried about, starting a pot of coffee one minute and coating a still-warm batch of doughnuts with sugar the next.

In the kitchen, Butch Pelletier sliced through large swaths of dough with a surgeon’s precision, shaping doughnuts by hand and frying them dozens at a time, never stopping, even to wipe beads of sweat from his forehead.

“I do everything the same way my father did it 50 years ago,” said Butch, who gave up a teaching career to work at the bakery when his father got sick.

Meanwhile, Butch’s brother, Leo Pelletier, made bad bakery puns about how “business is always on the rise,” or how “there is a lot of dough to be made,” while his thick hands pressed dough into pinwheels and other familiar shapes on old metal trays blackened from use.

The two brothers moved swiftly around each other in near silence – like dancers who have committed their partner’s steps to memory.

At 5 a.m., Larry’s officially opened for business. Launa, like her father used to do, called out the first name of every customer without looking up – her hands hastily packing doughnuts into crisp white boxes.

“Morning, Sonny,” she greeted local contractor Sonny Young, who was the first to walk through the door. “Two chocolates and a jelly?”

What will Young do for his daily sugar fix when the bakery is gone?

“I don’t know, move to her house I guess,” Young said, glancing at Launa, who smiled without looking up. He then let out a belly laugh and disappeared out the front door.

When Young later dips into his white paper bag, the doughnuts won’t be perfectly round like those mass-produced at Dunkin’ Donuts or Krispy Kreme. They will be handmade. Real. Imperfect. Much like Larry’s customers, who will recall the friendly, family-run bakery long after it’s gone.

On Friday, starting at 5 a.m. and continuing throughout the day, Larry’s Pastry will give away samples of its pastries and take bids on the last two dozen doughnuts. Around closing time at 5 p.m., the winners will be announced.