Sisters Gourmet Deli in Portland’s Monument Square is closing for good next week, a decision owner Michaela McVetty said she made so that she can focus on her Bath store.
The Portland store, which opened in 2016 and serves specialty sandwiches, is closed this week but will open for a final day on Monday, from 10 a.m. until sell-out.
McVetty opened a second branch of Sisters in Bath in 2019. When her real estate agent called to tell her he’d found her a great spot, she was less than thrilled. “It’s in Bath?! Why would I want to go Bath? Take me somewhere cool, like South Portland,” she recalled telling him.
But Bath has grown on her.
“The truth is, we’ve outgrown this beautiful little spot,” McVetty wrote in her announcement of the Portland closure, “and Bath has very much stolen our hearts. My husband, Nick, and I have been operating at full throttle for some time now and it’s time for us to make a smart choice by concentrating all of our efforts in Bath.”
McVetty moved to a larger shop in Bath, a former Amato’s at 111 Centre St., two years ago. “Oh, my God! Oh, my God! It’s perfect!” she remembered telling her husband when she first saw the space. Not long after that, Bath Iron Works invited Sisters Gourmet Deli to to sell sandwiches inside the shipyard at lunchtime. “That’s been a game-changer for us,” she said.
Last winter, McVetty told the Press Herald that foot traffic in Portland was down 20% since the pandemic because so many office workers now work from home.
Sisters Gourmet delis are kitted out in bubblegum pink and robin’s egg blue and have a fun vibe. The business is named Sisters for sisterhood, she said, “coming from commercial kitchens my whole life and knowing what a boys’ club they were.” The menu includes sandwiches like lemon-herb chicken, Two Little Pigs (pork tenderloin and bacon) and the Dagwood.
Not too long ago, McVetty had three stores – one in Portland, one in Bath and a third in Portland, Oregon, where she lived for a time. In a telephone interview, she sounded giddy about downsizing.
“I feel mature for the first time,” she said. “I feel like I am doing it for me and for my husband and my family. The most difficult part of all of this is your pride, my husband and I talked about. If we wanted to have five of these, 10 of these, we could. We could grind it out, work 16-hour days, work seven days a week, but it’s not the life we want to live anymore.
“We have a great, great, great thing going in Bath. I don’t have anything to prove to anyone anymore. I like being home for dinner.”
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