Jerry's Market, family-owned for 75 years, is on the market for $1.95M

SANFORD, Maine — Peter Dunham, the owner of Jerry’s Market on Main Street, has a smile on his face as he talks about the new home he has on Lake Ontario.

Hanging on the walls next to the store’s deli counter are framed photos of Dunham and his big catches on the water over the years. As he looks at these pictures, you just know there are many more salmon in that Great Lake that have his name on them.

Dunham has not had too much time for such pursuits these last few decades, but a lot of it could soon open up for him: Jerry’s Market is on the market.

“We’re a unique market, and we knock it out of the park,” Dunham said on Tuesday. “It’s time to enjoy our lives.”

Malone Commercial Brokers has the business – a familiar fixture on Main Street in Sanford since the late 1940s – listed for sale at $1.95 million. The 5,676-square-foot building has the market on its ground floor and a three-bedroom apartment on the second floor.

Dunham and his business partner, Donna Nadeau, put the store on the market in February.

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Passing the torch

Dunham, 63, said that “in a perfect world” someone younger than he is – someone with a family, plenty of ambition, and a willingness to work – would buy the place. Whoever purchases the property will be able to count on him, if they would like.

“I’d like to continue to be here – just not the seven-days-a-week part,” he said.

Dunham said he could be the kind of person who could step in if the owner and their family wanted to, say, spend a couple of weeks at Disney Land sometime.

“Almost a partnership, if you will,” he added.

Dunham said he has been working seven days a week at the market for the past 22 years. Such a schedule was manageable enough but became especially challenging when the store’s beloved meat cutter, Al Varney, died eight years ago.

“Saturday mornings, I could come in at quarter past eight, let’s say, and Al would have hamburger done, he’d have a stack of steaks piled up to wrap. He’d get the show going,” Dunham said.

All in the family

Dunham has owned the store since 1989. His history with the market goes back even further, however, to 1971, when he was a teenager and worked for his father, Gerald Dunham, who started the business three-quarters of a century ago.

Gerald Dunham and his friend, Roland Porrell, started Jerry’s Market, from the ground up, at the corner of Main and Tebbetts streets in 1947. Porrell, who one day would become his brother-in-law, died a young man, and Dunham briefly partnered with his sister, Geraldine, to run the store. Eventually, he became its sole owner.

In the late 1950s, Dunham bought out Ernie’s Market on the corner of Main and Avon streets and moved his store there – and there it has remained ever since. Dunham retired in 1987 but continued to pitch in at the market until a few years ago.

The elder Dunham, incidentally, is poised to turn 100 years old on May 8, according to Peter Dunham.

“He will make it,” Dunham said. “I guarantee it.”

Dunham’s mother, Amber, died earlier this spring at age 92.

“She was a wonderful lady,” Dunham said. “She had a great life.”

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A fixture in the community

The market has been expanded four times at its current location, according to Dunham. During his years at the helm, Dunham has added seafood to the market’s repertoire and upgraded coolers and other equipment at the store.

Dunham also expanded the store’s customer base, welcoming new generations of shoppers. On Tuesday, for example, he said the store started preparing ready-to-go meals in the late 1980s as both parents in a household began working outside the home. Stopping at the store and picking up a made meal at the market proved helpful for such households.

As Dunham spoke, Nadeau could be seen preparing meatloaves for that very reason.

“We sell about 4,000 pies a year,” Nadeau said, referring to such supper staples as chicken pot pie, salmon pie, pork pie, and others.

Efficiency is needed to keep up with the demand, according to Dunham. For instance, you can’t spend a whole day getting around to making all of five pies.

“She’ll take two hours and make 50 chicken pies,” Dunham said as Nadeau spread cheese on top of one of the dishes she prepared.

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Jerry’s Market has not only expanded over the decades– it also has beaten odds. In the winter of 1987, a fire ripped through the restaurant next door, where Prompto, the oil-change garage, is located now. The way the wind whipped that cold night, Dunham did not think his store was going to survive.

“You never realize how good these firemen are until you watch them in action,” he told the Coast Star last year, when interviewed for a story about his father turning 99 years old.

Dunham did not have to close the market after the blaze, but the repairs that were needed burned up a lot of money.

“The early nineties were tough sledding,” he said.

Throughout it all – the expansions, the fire in 1987, the repairs and, in general, the very long hours, seven days a week – there has been a constant that Dunham, like his father before him, has found most rewarding: loyal customers with a strong sense of community.

“We’re truly blessed,” he said. “The community has definitely embraced us.”

This article originally appeared on Portsmouth Herald: Jerry's Market, family-owned for 75 years, is on the market in Sanford Maine