YARMOUTH — The customers, mostly men, mostly in their 50s and older, came in one last time, not because they needed another tool or fastener or roll of duct tape, but to say goodbye.

Goodbye to Butch Goff, the boisterous, bearded owner who manned the counter for four and a half decades, and his wife Jean.

Goodbye to Goff’s Hardware, a Lower Village mainstay that opened in the 1960s, when stores were still named after their proprietors.

Goodbye, seemingly, to an entire era of local specialty shops that helped define a community.

“Most of these mom-and-pop places have gone by the wayside,” Goff said wistfully Monday. “Everybody wants bigger. More.”

Monday marked the final day of operation for the hardware store. Goff, 70, is finally retiring. He has already agreed to sell the building. In a few weeks, the new owner will take over and open an art studio – another subtle shift in the economic landscape.

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Throughout the day, loyal customers stopped in to Goff’s Hardware to peruse the mostly bare shelves one last time.

Denny Landry, a local electrician, has been coming for about as many years as the store’s been in business, he reckons.

“When I started coming, this was really the only place,” he said. “After that, I just liked it, I guess.”

Doug Roux has a similar story.

“I think I’ve come in every day for the last three months and I don’t even need anything,” he said.

“It’s too bad,” Roux said about the store’s closure. “But (Butch) has earned every bit of his retirement.”

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When Butch Goff and his father bought the building at 90 Main St. in 1969, it was a dry goods store, the type of store you don’t see anymore. A couple of years later, Goffs added a clothing section, but that didn’t stick. So instead, they expanded the hardware section and found their niche.

In those days, there was a local drugstore a few doors down, and a diner. Customers who walked that section of Main Street, just down from North Yarmouth Academy, were treated to a village of storefronts out of a Norman Rockwell painting.

The front window of Goff’s Hardware always stood out – in part because of Sandy.

Sandy is a carnival-style mechanical horse, brown with a white tail and mane. For a dime, kids could ride while their parents shopped.

Thankfully, Goff said, Sandy will live on. The Yarmouth Historical Society agreed to take her.

Goff is moving on, too. He plans to spend his time traveling with his wife and fishing without her.

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Asked what his secret was to running a successful business, Goff replied with the obvious answer: good customer service.

“I never had a forklift, if you can believe it,” he said. “I touched everything that came in with my hands.”

He was good to his customers and they repaid that with loyalty.

Said Roux: “If he didn’t have something, he could get it for you.”

The most popular items over the years, Goff said, were always duct tape, WD-40 and paint thinner: The staples of the Maine handyman.

Goff said the decision to close was not financial. He’s convinced he could have continued to make a living. But he said he doesn’t know how much time he has left and doesn’t want to spend it all behind that counter.

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“It’s just time,” he said.

Now, Roux, Landry and the other regulars will have to go somewhere else. Maybe across town to a bigger chain hardware store. Or to a big-box store in another town.

Goff said he’s a little sad that his store won’t endure. He said he’ll miss the people most.

“One guy said to me today that this is the only place in town you can say what you want and not get in trouble,” Goff said before letting out a hearty laugh that echoed throughout the store.

As a handful of customers picked over the last few items on the shelves Monday, a customers approached Goff.

“Do you work here?” he said, obviously unaware of the sign out front.

Goff just smiled.

“Until tonight,” he said.


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