Rima Grace
speaker
3,013 appearances
32 recordings
2 series
first heard Jan 2026
last heard 3 Jul
Rima Grace’s voice in public audio — every appearance, attributed to the second.
Trend
recordings per month · last 12 monthsRecordings per month over the last 12 months — 32 in all, peaking in Jan 2026 with 12.
Appearances
You can find them all over New England.
They're called country stores.
Though maybe you call it the general store or the village store.
Maybe it's just the corner store.
Whatever name you give it, they're part convenience stop, part community center, part local institution.
And like a lot of local institutions, country stores have been struggling as big box stores and grocery chains have moved in.
But some of them are trying to hold on, trying to figure out what the next version of the country store looks like.
Jackie Harris from New Hampshire Public Radio has that story.
Back in the day, meaning 100 or even 200 years ago, a town's country store was the nearest place for miles where you could buy nails, eggs, and a cup of coffee, all while catching up with your neighbors.
Beth Richards owns The Barrel and Basket in Hopkinton.
Though ownership and names have changed, there's been a store of some kind at the site since 1790.
The original wood beams are still in place, and Richards sells penny candy and local maple syrup.
No one has to go to the store to make a call anymore.
And it's often just as easy to grab a snack or whatever you need at your local gas station.
So Richards is adapting.
She has to carefully balance expectations from the past and the economic realities of the present.
Richards says her profit margins are tight, sometimes as low as half a percent.
For another struggling general store in Harrisville, New Hampshire, the solution was to get out of the for-profit realm altogether.
We're a historic preservation organization, so running a general store wasn't the original plan.
John Knight is the executive director of Historic Harrisville, a nonprofit that works to preserve the town's historic buildings.
Showing 141–160 of 3,013 · page 8 of 151
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