Grocery Stores, Places To Shop For Food In Houlton ME

Grocery stores, places to shop for food in Houlton ME.

Because you gotta eat. You need to shop for grocery supplies continuously unless you are totally farm to table and pretty much living self sufficient. But for many of us, before you know it, time to refuel three times a day. The stomach is grumbling right on time when the dinner bell rings.

Where do we go? Houlton Maine is at the transportation cross road hub of all the major highways. Let’s go shopping for what we need and have run out off today. Do you plan your meals for the weekend ahead to grocery shop for everything you need? During the coronavirus pandemic, more than ever it makes business and health sense to make a grocery item list. Get in, get out, stay away for a week or more if you can grocery shop wisely.

So back to the topic of the blog post, where to do you shop for grocery store food in Houlton ME?

When it’s time to go on the hunt to look for some food items to prepare a good home cooked meal. To enjoy it up to woods hunting camp in front of the pot belly wood heater stove. Grillin’ and chillin’ out on the open deck at the summer lakeshore cottage. Or to stock the pantry shelves for dining for the week ahead in our family Houlton ME home. No matter if you are passing through Southern Aroostook County on vacation or when you live full here full time as a native, you need to restock your kitchen shelves with grocery items.

What do you have for grocery stores, places to shop for food in Houlton Maine?

Fresh Produce, Baked Breads, Sweets. The Local Amish Farmers Supply The Open Air Farmers Market In Market Square, Houlton Maine.

“Welcome To Houlton Maine. Lots To Offer In Small Town Proud Grocery Stores And Local Farm Producers Helping To Feed The Local Communities. The Owner Is In The Store.”

Where do you go for local grub? In the Houlton Maine area for grocery store shopping in this border town?

Finding your way around Houlton ME. Here some helpful advice. You are in luck. There are lots of grocery stores and supply options for restocking your food pantry.

This blog post outlines the many places to shop, grocery store food sources in Houlton Maine.

When a small convenience store with this and that in and out items just won’t cut it. When you are on the hunt for a full blown grocery store, With the bulging shelves and end caps, coolers, freezers all filled to the brim with a variety of food supply items. Lots of smaller grocery stores in Houlton Maine were the norm rather than three or four primary vendors for household food shopping items. No ordering out of state grocery items for delivery truck drop offs from the Internet. Heck, back in the day, the milk man brought your local dairy products and eggs to your door.

Come and get it. Grab a grocery shopping cart. Put it back for another one if it has a bad wheel and saddle up.

Taking off on a grub run up and down the store aisles in search of grocery items. Listening to the store music as you fill ‘er up to the brim. In alphabetical order, Andy’s IGA tops the grocery store list. Andy Marino’s grocery store in the Houlton Shopping Plaza on North Street is one option. The address is 132 North ST Houlton ME to program into the GPS.

When you grab the wire cart to troll for food for the prepared meals ahead on the weekly grocery list, it may be a stop at Andy’s IGA at the Houlton Shopping Plaza.

At one time there were two Andy’s IGA stores…. one the old C & G Foodliner located at the beginning of North Street (US RT 1) almost on the shores of the Meduxnekeag River. The other grocery store outlet located but now expanded in the shopping center spot near Machias Savings Bank, Label Shopper, Mardens. The same shopping center where you headed when you used to be able to have it your way at Burger King except not today (the flame broiler currently turned off, BK closed).

The Andy’s IGA now takes care of customers at the shopping center.

Weekly specials, great selection of produce, meats, beer and wine. Get your smokes, lottery tickets, ice, charcoal, can goods, dairy case and freezer items with ease. You’ll be checking off all the grocery store items on the shopping list without any hassle at Andy’s IGA on North Street in Houlton ME. You can shop online and have the grocery items delivered right to your doorstep too. Rosie, a grocery store app for curbside food item pick up is offered for your shopping convenience at Andy’s IGA. And for touchless coronavirus safe grocery shopping peace of mind.

Next up heading higher in the alphabet is County Yankee Grocer.

The original County Yankee Houlton store was where Don Brewer’s grocery was for years. What we sold that then became Mr Chip’s Superette. Lack of parking plagued the original County Yankee. So owner Dave Cunya drew up the blue prints. Started eying where to move as the business patrons following his success grew.

To serve you better, the expansion caused the grocery store relocation from the corner of Spring and Military Streets. To just a little ways up the road a piece. Now located on a different corner on higher ground, next door to the Houlton police and fire departments, the County Yankee borders Hillview and Military Streets. A larger, brighter square footage to peddle groceries from, the County Yankee is the newest food store in Houlton ME. Now it’s located at 101 Military Street Houlton ME.

Where else to shop for groceries in Houton ME could you go in Southern Aroostook?

Hannaford Houlton ME Grocery Store at 33 Ludlow Road Houlton Maine! Shop N Save to many, heck some still call it Sampson’s. If you have lived in Houlton ME for a few years, you might remember the Shop & Save on Military and Bangor Street triangle location. Now the University College in Houlton, that smaller square footage grocery store was one busy beehive for food shopping. Kinda of a corner grocery only bigger. Servicing the west end of town. It was one busy location with Plaza Pharmacy next door for convenience. That Shop N Save started out where Sampson’s Supermarket opened up in 1964. Sampson’s Supermarket was the place to shop for groceries back in time.

Before that, Houlton ME grocery stores were plentiful and located all over Houlton Maine, Aroostook County’s oldest town.

The A & P on Kendall Street and Market Square was a busy place for all the food staples. Places like Wilson’s Market on South Street was where my Mom liked to shop back in the 1960’s. Wilson’s Market on the corner of South and Coumbia Street lacked the crowds, you could get in and out easily and the neighborhood grocery was family owned.

You could wheel around with the wire cart quickly to fill ‘er up and bag it, tag it, high tail it for your Houlton home stopping to shop at Wilson’s Market.

In and out one stop convenience item shopping. Same kinda of shopping experience with Fred Berube at High Street Market up on Franklin Avenue and High Street’s busy corner. Anderson’s Market just down from it on High Street a tad. Or Dow’s Market further up on the corner of Commonweatlh and Franklin Avenue in Houlton Maine. Here’s a photo of the new Shop N Save Hannaford Store In Houlton Maine just off Interstate 95 and US RT 1.

There were lots of small groceries like John Dickinson’s next to where the Salvation Army is today (now an open parking lot). Up in Paddy Hollow on Military Street you stopped to shop for groceries at Daigle’s Market. Just before the foot of Drake’s Hill. Friendly, personable, handy and a low key place to grocery shop in Houlton Maine. Anderson’s, Dow’s, Fred Berube, Johhny Dickinson and many other small mom and pop groceries thrived years ago. Long before the larger franchise grocery shopping store outlets came into the picture.

Last up for grocery stores in Houlton ME at the tail end of the A through Z is Walmart.

The large national retailer promotes free grocery pick up on their Walmart website.

Store number 1974, Walmart like Hannaford’s next door has a pharmacy under the same big box roof at 17 Ludlow Road Houlton Maine. Unlike a super Walmart, the Houlton store has held back on grocery items. There is selection, but not as complete or expansive as the other grocery stores you can shop in Houlton ME. That could all change if the store floor plan was super sized into larger outlet for grocery items.

Shop til you drop or just for a few grocery items, where to do it in Houlton ME?

It is not just the ease of getting in and out or the lowest price or best selection for grocery items. Some people even cross the New Brunswick border into Canada to shop for grocery items. To get store items not found on the local shelves on this side of the boundary line.

Lots of grocery store outlets around Woodstock New Brunswick Canada that some Houlton Maine shopper frequent.

To get items not available on this side of the border. For example, bread and butter mustard pickles for the bake bean Saturday night supper. Pastry that is light and flaky was another popular item to get in Woodstock New Brunswick shopping jaunts across the border.

My Dad’s mom was 100% Canadian so shopping, being “over home” was never strange or difficult.

Lots of the folks you meet on either side of the border are your cousins, somehow related. Schwann’s brings grocery items to your door on weekly visits. They have a grocery store on wheels parked out front your home weekly if you want. Kind of partial to the deep dish pizzas. Very handy when the two boys were playing hockey and regular meal time planning was a little messed up. Before COVID19 restricted border crossing, back and forth shopping from both sides for grocery items was common. Canadian grocery shoppers especially loading up on Houlton Farms Dairy milk products and fueling up with gas for their cars too.

border crossing to grocery shop in canada

The local Amish communities in Smyrna and East Hodgdon also grow a lot of produce, baked items made too.

Visit them in the open air Market Square on Saturday mornings to stock on on home made items you can not purchase in any grocery chain store. Watch a couple farmer’s market in downtown Houlton Maine videos.

The Houlton County Co Op and Farm Store is another option for shopping for healthy grocery food.

Get bulk grains, local organic farm food. Have a lunch and meet some neat people over coffee. More places to shop for what you need to get you by for another week of grocery staples in Houlton Maine?

Watch a video from the County Co Op Farm Store to check out the venue just beyond Market Square.

You can get great prices, lots of organic food items, extensive list of sprices and order off their complete shopping list if a Co Op Farm Store volunteer member.

Learn more about the Shiretown of Maine’s largest and most northern County. More on Aroostook County’s oldest town, Houlton Maine‘s unique flavor. Outside of the town limit’s of Houlton Maine, you could hit a lot of in season farm stands. My parents had one on the family farm a little over a mile out on the County now Smyrna Road. I picked lots of produce, especially strawberries and farm fresh ears of corn sold in a baker’s dozen. Nature’s Circle leases the ground, grows organic food on my family farm about a mile and a half out on US RT 2 in Houlton Maine pictured below.

Charlie Smith’s Black Bear vegetable stand was popular for years too.

Local potato farmers helped supply dry beans, potatoes, local veggies like corn and squash for some extra cash. The kind that came in handy in the dead of summer when all your money is planted in the farm ground waiting for a profitable harvest. You hoped.

For local Houlton Maine grocery items on your weekly list of what you were out of and needed to restock.

You could stop and shop at places like the IGA that Kermit Estey’s ran up in Monticello.Or by stopping in for a can of corn, green beans, loaf of bread, gallon of milk, whatever at Hatfield’s Market in New Limerick. The latter now Cameron’s market near the LP mill in New Limerick on the corner of US RT 2 or County and Station Roads. Owned before that by Tyler Perry, Charlie Marshall, Ronnie and Nancy Henderson.

Ken’s Store another hot spot for convenience items, to fill up with gas and get the grocery store essentials.

Smaller outlet grocery stores, places to shop for food in outer Houlton Maine. Good place for the social shoot the breeze aspect too livingone of the small Northern Maine towns. You could fill up on grocery store items at slightly higher but very convenience location food prices. While at the same time learning what’s new going on around you in the community.

Local haunts to shop for local news and add your own what you know about the topic makes small Maine towns tightly connected.

Out on the Bangor Road, the Country Store on US RT 2A managed by the Kirk’s family did a whale of a business. Lake steaks especially were sliced and diced by old man Kirk who used to be the meat man wearing a white butcher’s apron at a bigger grocery food chain. Before carving out his own successful business operation with his wife Ruth peddling grocery food items.

Crossing the Maine Canadian border into New Brunswick to shop for groceries in Woodstock.

That happened too and back and forth folks from both sides of the International Boundary line would go to grocery shop. Often because you could get a special kind of bread and butter pickle or pastry item or type of macaroni from brand name suppliers not available on the other side of the US Canadian border. The coronavirus has put a kink in the back and force grocery shopping for both Americans and Canadians crossing the border to by goods on each side.

Back in the early days when more was local and not as much happened outside a small Maine town when shopping, it was social. One family member stayed out in the vehicle with the window rolled down and chewing the fat, shooting the breeze with others around Market Square. Friday or Saturday night grocery shopping doubled as a chance to come to town and catch up on the local gossip and local community news.

Stay tuned for more local information on Houlton, Northern Maine, Southern Aroostook County.

Thank you for sticking around until the end of this latest post. Hope this getting around the area blog post on where to shop for groceries in Houlton ME list of food stores is helpful.

Grocery Stores, Places To Shop For Food In Houlton ME