A year after shutting its doors, the Bowdoinham Country Store will reopen under new ownership with plans to revive it as a community hub.

The new owners, Ashleigh and Logan Feeney, plan on opening in about a month, with a target date of late April or early May. Bowdoinham has been without a country store since it closed down toward the end of 2024.

The previous owner, Sam Hilling, had difficulty finding a new owner. It was important for others in Bowdoinham to keep the country store in local hands rather than sell it off to an outside buyer, Hilling said.

The Feenys left their full-time jobs to dedicate time to renovating the store. Those renovations have continued for seven months, with the last few projects including adding a kitchen hood and fire suppression system.

“Our goal is to cater to all demographics in this town,” Logan Feeny said. “The community, I think, has realized over the last year what life without a store was like, and everybody has shown an outpouring of support and excitement for us to reopen the doors.”

The new country store will include a small restaurant, deli, convenience store and ice cream shop, Logan Feeny said.

It will be a gathering place for the community, carrying forward the country store’s history as the central hub for Bowdoinham since it opened in the late 1920s, Ashleigh Feeny said. The owners also plan on maintaining its role as a tagging station for hunters.

For the next smelt season, the store plans on posting menus in the smelting shacks so fishermen can stop by for food and drink while fishing the Cathance River.

“The store itself is something more along the lines of a quintessential ‌country store,” Logan Feeny said. “Our focus, and what I expect to be our differentiator from previous iterations of the store, is a real focus on the food output in the kitchen.”

After the store opens, the new owners plan on hiring three to four employees, with the store tentatively being open from 6 a.m. to 7 p.m. Monday through Friday.

The store will have a staple menu available throughout the year with soups and salads of the day, along with homemade bread in rotation. The Feenys also plan on reopening the ice cream window during the hotter months.

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