“It’s certainly a challenge I wasn’t expecting … being under the shop, raising the building, with a little crab floating beside me,” Larry Veinot, owner of Weymouth Mercantile, laughs at the absurdity of what he’s just said. “We’ve seen at least 50 crabs over the past three years!”

Running your own shop is not for the faint of heart, but for Larry, who has been working in the grocery business for more than 40 years, it’s just another day at the store.

Weymouth Mercantile opened back in the summer of 2010. At the time, it was a general merchandise store that didn’t offer groceries … yet.

“We listen to what our customers tell us,” Larry explains. And after Foodland closed its doors, Weymouth Mercantile started to expand its offerings. Today, they offer basic groceries and incidentals. There is also a cozy café in the store, where you can grab a coffee and a muffin or some hot breakfast – toast, eggs, bacon, sausage.

“It’s a place in the morning where the old folks gather and talk about all the things - sometimes you hear the same stories on repeat,” Larry says. “It comforts me well. They’ve become my friends over the years.”

In order to buy the 100-year-old building on Highway 1 in Weymouth, Larry enlisted the help of CBDC Digby-Clare.

“The Digby-Clare CBDC helped us pay for the building with a loan,” Larry says. “They were right there from the start.” He is also grateful for the business advice they provided, including training on how to best determine margins and pricing on each item sold at the store.

“We’ve been using those principles since day one!” Larry says.

In a town where everybody knows everybody, Weymouth Mercantile has become a fixture. Larry rises at 4:30am every morning and starts work at 5:05am on weekdays to welcome customers as they start to come in. Even pets are allowed in the store, with one lucky dog getting a piece of bacon when he arrives at the front entrance.

“We try to be a little bit of everything,” Larry notes. Weymouth Mercantile is currently looking into ways to increase their frozen food offerings, as well as getting their own well drilled in the coming weeks.

“A “hi, how are you today?” said with sincerity means a lot. It’s rare,” Larry says. “We all need that personal touch.”