CALAIS – A grocery store that’s been around for 30 years has a new home.

Bells IGA has moved from Washington Street to North Street, next to Marden’s furniture store.

Ed and Kathy Bell and their daughter Sarah were all smiles Monday with the opening of their new 24,000-square-foot store. A formal grand opening is expected to be held in the next few weeks.

The larger and more attractive store was bustling with customers. “Our [old] store was so crowded and everybody bumped into each other, and we decided it was time and this location became available,” owner Kathy Bell said Monday.

Sarah said she was excited with the opening. “They’ve owned this store long before I was born, so it’s exciting to say goodbye to the place we grew up in and to move into a new store and hopefully serve the community better,” she said.

There are wider aisles with more items.

“We want to offer expanded variety and selection and a better shopping experience, but just the same value that we’ve always offered and the quality of our products,” Kathy said. “We also have an expanded deli and bakery, but it’s not fully finished yet. We’re 80, probably to 85 percent finished, but we have a little bit more.”

A walk through the parking lot Monday found cars from both sides of the international border. Calais’ closest Canadian neighbor is just across the border in St. Stephen, New Brunswick.

“This is fantastic,” Gail Hood of St. Stephen said Monday. “The store is so much bigger in space here and it’s wonderful, everything looks great.”

IGAs are known throughout the world for their “Hometown Proud,” marketing theme.

“When the forefathers of IGA sought to create an independent grocers system 80 years ago, it is unlikely they ever imagined the impact their vision would have on the world’s grocery industry,” the company said on its Web site. “What started as an alliance of around 100 independent grocers in Poughkeepsie, N.Y., and Sharon, Conn., has become IGA Inc. – a global supermarket network with aggregate worldwide retail sales of more the $19.1 billion per year.”

Today, IGA includes more than 3,500 independent supermarkets in 48 of the 50 United States, and throughout the world with stores in Antigua, Botswana, Canada, China, Czech Republic, Indonesia, Japan, Korea, Poland, Spain, Thailand and Zimbabwe, among other places.

“IGA is supported by 52 distribution companies and more than 55 major manufacturers, vendors and suppliers encompassing everything from grocery to equipment items,” the Web site said.