BY JON O’CONNELL, STAFF WRITER
A South Scranton retailer of restaurant-grade food and equipment will close at the start of the year.
Employees at Maines Food & Party Warehouse, 733 Davis St., learned the store is closing to the public Jan. 1.
Efforts to reach officials with the store’s parent company, Conklin, New York-based Maines Paper and Food Service Inc., were unsuccessful Monday.
The Scranton store is one of the distribution company’s four retail spots. Another is in Forty Fort, which is not closing. The other two are in New York.
Maines first arrived in Scranton in 2006 bringing public access to restaurant-grade food and supplies with no club membership required.
Back then it was called MainSource and opened a store at Oak Street and Keyser Avenue. Maines opened the Forty Fort store about the same time and revealed plans to open 20 in all across its service area, which now includes more than 35 states.
Three years later, the Scranton store outgrew its space and expanded with a new 20,000-square-foot building on Davis Street and doubled its employee roster.
“I’m surprised because I always thought they did a great business there,” said Glider Diner owner Charlie LeStrange.
He shopped Maines frequently when it was in North Scranton, and closer to his Providence Road restaurant, but
said he still ventured to South Side, most recently a few months ago for a commercial toaster.
A retail store like Maines makes sense for restaurant owners who need supplies in a pinch, LeStrange said, but otherwise food service sales reps offer full lines of equipment.
“You’re more inclined to order from them,” he said.
Pete Ventura, partner at Coney Island Lunch in Scranton, shops at Maine’s frequently to provision his popular downtown hot dog spot.
“That’s going to be a problem,” he said.
He imagines he’ll just have order goods he buys there regularly now, he said. One of them is mustard.
Contact the writer:
joconnell@timesshamrock.com;
570-348-9131;
@jon_oc on Twitter