After so many restaurants went out of business during the pandemic and stores closing due to the retail apocalypse, it is a welcome change to report that there are several new businesses that plan to fill vacant storefronts around Hanover and Lebanon.
Let’s hope this is a trend. We’ll see. Here’s a rundown:
■ Tacos Y Tequila will be a new “casual fine dining” Mexican restaurant taking over the Skinny Pancake space on Lebanon Street in Hanover.
Pennsylvania restaurateur Ramiro Bravo, 40, who has already opened three Tacos Y Tequila restaurants — two in Pennsylvania and one in the Portland, Maine, suburb of Cape Elizabeth, said he chose Hanover for his next locations “because the opportunity was there.”
That opportunity, Bravo said, was created by “a lot of restaurants closing during the pandemic. I saw a void in the market for Mexican food and this is a turn-key location.”
Bravo, whose family is in the restaurant business in South Carolina, said the menu will feature “a mix of authentic and modern inspired Mexican cuisine,” including “fresh tableside guacamole” and an extensive selection of tequilas. (His Pennsylvania restaurants list nearly 50 different tequilas).
“I’ll have as many different tequilas as New Hampshire allows. If they have 100, I’ll have 100,” Bravo said.
He hopes to be open by August or September.
Pinnacle Sports, the Newport, N.H., firearm, fishing equipment and archery store owned by Newport Selectboard member John Hooper, is coming to West Lebanon.
Hooper said he will open his second store later this summer in the former Costumania space at LaValley’s Colonial Plaza on Route 12A.
The two-floor, 6,000-square-foot space is nearly double the size Pinnacle has in Newport. Costumania closed in March after more than 30 years in business.
“We like to think we’re not just another gun shop,” Hooper said. “We’re family-friendly, bright, clean and nonpolitical. We’re not coming to the Upper Valley to make any political statement. We see a need for a solid outdoor sporting goods store.”
Hooper said there is an opening for a firearms store in West Lebanon as retailers like Walmart have pulled back on selling some models of firearms and handgun ammunition in response to mass shootings.
“You can’t be a big-box store and do a great job educating people about firearms,” Hooper said.
Hooper said firearms education and training is a big part of his business.
LaValley’s Colonial Plaza, at Exit 20 on Interstate 89, in clear view of motorists on the highway, is an ideal location, Hooper noted.
“We’ve been waiting for just the right spot,” Hooper said. “We’ve looked at a number of properties and heard through the grapevine that this property was going to be vacated.”
No surprise there — Hooper is a 20-year employee of Colonial Plaza owner LaValley Building Supply, where he is vice president of sales.
“It’s a short vine,” he admitted.
■The Sierra Trading Post store targeted to open in the former Kmart Plaza in West Lebanon appears to be a step closer to happening.
The Davis Cos., which owns the shopping center now called — at least in marketing materials — TJ Maxx Plaza, has filed for a building permit with Lebanon’s planning department detailing a $2 million build-out of an 18,000-square-foot Sierra Trading Post at the south end of the former Kmart store.
Most of the former Kmart space, nearly 87,000-square-feet, is currently undergoing a $6.7 million conversion into a Target store, which is aiming to open this fall.
Oddly, although TJX, parent company of TJ Maxx, has not officially announced it is opening a Sierra store in West Lebanon, the property’s leasing agent, Charter Realty & Development, recently updated its online marketing brochure to show a Sierra store occupying the space adjacent to Target.
Dan Zelson, principal in Charter, declined to comment.
And a spokesman for Sierra wasn’t much more enthusiastic to talk about it.
“When opening a new store, we tend to announce our plans when we believe the time is right to do so competitively,” Martin Casiano, brand marketing manager at Sierra, said via email, which he noted usually occurs “close to an intended opening date.”
Greene’s Oil & Propane, a small distributor of heating fuel based on Route 14 in Hartford Village, has ended its run.
Owner Sherry Greene posted on Facebook that she had to shut down the business in order to care for her husband, Joe Greene, who has been ailing.
“This was a very difficult decision, and we really valued our customers,” Greene wrote in the post. Messages for comment left for Greene were not returned.
Small by the standard of other Upper Valley fuel distributors, Greene in recent years exited the propane business and this past winter was down to single delivery truck driver.
Greene is the daughter of Mary Shatney, longtime owner of the former Polka Dot diner in White River Junction.
Contact me with your business news at jlippman@vnews.com.
