NAICS Code 4512

Location 158 Main Street, Damariscotta, ME 4543

Nearby Businesses US Post Office, Reny’s, Reny’s Underground, Damariscotta Center, Puffin’s Nest Clothing, The Breakfast Place, Newcastle Square Reality, River Gallery, River Grill, King Eider’s Pub, Salt Bay Café, Star’s Jewelry, Waltz Pharmacy, Skidompha Public Library (which just won the 2008 National Medal for Library Services), and several others.

Owner/Manager Susan Porter

Special Store Activities Special orders and book searches, book author signings; free gift wrapping; dogs are welcome and are regular visitors, brought in by their owners to socialize.

Year Opened 1964

Website http://www.mainecoastbookshop.com

Phone 207-563-3207

E-mail mcbooks@midcoast.com

Community Profile Located in Lincoln County, Maine, on the Damariscotta River, Damariscotta (population: 1751; 10-mile radius: 20,000) is a popular tourist destination in Maine. The Main Street bridge over the Damariscotta River connects the community to its twin village of Newcastle, Maine. Attractions include boating, fishing, antique shops, hiking, hunting, cross-country skiing and historical site-seeing. Much of downtown Damariscotta was built in the 1700s and 1800s, giving the place a strong lingering flavor of earlier times

Products Sold & Niche Developed

The Maine Coast Book Shop & Café is an independent general book shop carrying new and old books still in print, and has a strong reputation for its wide-ranging selection and an especially knowledgeable, helpful and friendly staff. Although the Maine Coast Book Shop (MCBS) does not limit itself to any specific genre, it does have an especially good selection of Maine books and books by local authors and a terrific children’s section. MCBS also carries cards & stationary, newspapers and magazines, children’s toys and stuffed animals and puppets, calendars, puzzles, Maine Coast Book Shop T-shirts and miscellaneous other items.

Market Segments Served

Maine is demographically an old state, thus customers are typically adults and often retired individuals, although the café is popular with high school students after school. There is a considerable summer resident population and many tourists.

Contributions to the Business Community

In 2000, MCBS purchased the ground floor of Lincoln Hall (which used to be a large grocery store), making significant renovations and restoration to the historic structure (built in 1875) and adding a café, the first on Main Street in Damariscotta. The second floor is home to the Lincoln County Community Theatre. When MCBS added the café with its sidewalk tables, it quickly became very popular and remains so as a preferred meeting place for friends, professionals and their clients, and for people waiting for the twice-daily bus. The bookshop also does a lot in concert with the library next door – author speaking events, special films, etc., often providing coffee and something to eat. Another service is selling tickets for theater productions and many other events around town. Being very centrally located in the largest building on Main Street, having both front and rear entrances and the widest sidewalk, which is covered by a canopy and which is conducive to many sidewalk sales and events, the bookshop is one of the busiest places in town, 7 days a week.

Owner Susan Porter works with the informal Damariscotta Region Business Alliance to plan community events, including a Pumpkin Festival, Pirate Festival for charity, Winter Weekend, and Early Bird Sale for women and others during fall hunting season. The Alliance’s regular meetings are held in the Café.

MCBS is involved with the Community Theatre, working together to preserve and maintain the historic structure they occupy together. MCBS and other downtown businesses are involved in education and organizations for “Buy Local” programming. And MCBS is also very active in supporting quite a number of local organizations beyond those mentioned.

The MCBS won the Book Publishers Representatives of New England’s 2008 Independent Spirit Award for creative excellence in customer service, community involvement, and furthering the cause of independent bookselling, naming it The New England Book Store of the Year.

MCBS innovative website includes a webcam of Main Street, showing weather conditions and activity of the street. The website is viewed by over 8,000 visitors from more than 65 countries each month. The website’s theme is very much geared to being a visual touchstone to the area, as well as letting viewers know what is happening at their favorite bookshop, in their favorite community.