Frye's Store reopens in Center Conway

A Center Conway landmark, Frye's Store, has reopened after an absence of about 10 years in the village. New owner Greg Fecteau hopes to revive many of the traditions that drew people into the store for decades, from the welcoming mom-and-pop-store atmosphere to the pizza and deli sandwiches that kept customers coming back. The store, located next to Conway Town Hall, is still a work in progress, Fecteau said, and over the next few weeks he will be building up his inventory. He plans to offer standard convenience store items coffee, newspapers, cold drinks, milk and eggs and other food as well as prepared foods. He is currently serving prepared foods, such as breakfast sandwiches, wrap sandwiches, doughnuts from Leavitt's Bakery and some pastries made on the premises. Just this week, he started selling pizza. He hopes to expand the bakery offerings and, when the new kitchen is complete, expand the business's deli offerings as well. He is currently working to get licenses to sell cigarettes and beer and wine, and hopes to have those in soon. Eventually, he hopes to have a full deli, with made-to-order sandwiches and salads."We don't have the money to have everything in the world right now," he said. "We're hoping that people will be patient with us, which I think they will be. People are excited about this project."The store is open 6:30 a.m. to 4 p.m. seven days a week, primarily staffed by Fecteau, with some help from family members and friends. In the near future, Fecteau said he plans to expand those hours to 6:30 a.m. to 6:30 p.m.Fecteau, a 1995 Kennett High School graduate who grew up in Conway, had been working with his father, Ken Fecteau, in the construction business, Fecteau Plumbing, before buying the the store about a year ago. He studied criminal justice at Hesser College in Manchester and electrical installation and maintenance at New Hampshire Community Technical College in Laconia, but his mother said it has long been Greg's dream to own his own store. Greg said that working in construction with his father, they would always stop in to First Stop in Conway to take a break, get coffee or something to eat. "I just always enjoyed the atmosphere. Dad and I have been going to First Stop for years. I enjoy going in there. That's where the idea came from," he said. And after awhile, he thought, "Why not make a living at it? So far it's going good. I enjoy seeing people every morning."One of his goals for the store is to make it a friendly place for people to stop by. "I want people to get a hello the moment they come in the door. I want it to be the kind of place where we say thank you for your business. You don't hear that much anymore. I want it to be a place where people feel welcome."Fecteau has never run a food-service business or convenience store before. But, he said, "It's not rocket science, either. People have asked me, 'Greg, how are you going to do it? You've never done it before.' People give you advice and you listen to them. And it's paid off, you know."We went into every single convenience store in the valley," he said, and many store owners were generous with their advice, especially Sid and Carol Potter of Valley Food and Beverage in North Conway. He talked with Vinnie of Sunflower Pizza, a popular pizza vendor at Fryeburg Fair each year, and Vinnie put him in touch with the Micucci Wholesale Foods to buy ingredients for his pizzas. "It's not Vinnie's recipe, but he told me who to contact to get ingredients," he said. He has been working with his own recipe and unveiled it over the weekend, opening it up to regular customers this week.Fecteau said he also wants to hear from his customers. "If someone doesn't like something, we want to know so we can fix it. We want to have a really good product," he said.Like his customers, Greg Fecteau has fond memories of Frye's Store, which he visited frequently during the summers when he was young. He has been collecting bits of memorabilia, including pictures of the original owners, Alton and Theresa Frye, who opened the first store there in the late 1920s or early 1930s. It remained in the family until the 1980s, then passed through the hands of a couple of other owners, most recently Scott Montgomery, before closing in about 1998. The building sat vacant until Fecteau decided to buy it and reopen the store. He bought the business with a partner in February and started renovating the building. The new store area, with its modern tile floors and white sheetrock walls, seems brighter and more open than the dark wood floors of the old interior. After years of use and years of neglect, the building, which dates from the late 1890s (Fecteau found a newspaper from 1894 in one of the walls during the renovations), was in very bad shape. The old kitchen was torn down and is being completely rebuilt. The old pine floor was rotted in places. Although Fecteau would have liked to salvage that floor to keep the old store feel, state health inspectors told him wooden floors are not allowed, so the floor is now tile. The renovations weren't complete this summer, but Fecteau opened the ice cream stand and ran that through the summer before going back to renovations in the fall.The store is already busy, with customers coming in for coffee, breakfast sandwiches and newspapers. People stop to chat, reminiscing about the old Frye's, and asking about plans for the new one, some asking if he will be offering fondly-remembered favorites like teriyaki chicken pizza (he hopes to). Some stop in just to see what's there. Fecteau greets them all. "I don't want a single person coming in without being greeted. Everybody when they come in wants to know what's going on. I explain it to them and tell them we're a work in progress," Fecteau said. "I could spend another six months on construction. You could spend forever on a building like this," he said.And the name for the new store? Fecteau said he has decided to stick with the name Frye's Store. "No matter what we named it, people were going to call it Frye's," he said.