Pemberton Market, the liquor and convenience store at 2245 Massachusetts Ave., will close May 31 and merge into the Pemberton Farms garden center and gourmet shop across the street, writes Ron Newman on the Davis Square LiveJournal.
“The reasons are many, but the simple one is that we just weren’t profitable with two locations side by side,” said Mark Saidnawey, a co-owner of the stores and a gardening expert. “Although we have larger plans for our business down the road, for now we will incorporate this into the existing store and hope to make it all work.”
Nobody at either store yet knows exactly how this is going to work, or whether Pemberton Farms will have longer hours after the merger, Newman writes.
Pemberton Farms closes at 9 p.m. Mondays through Fridays and 8 p.m. Saturdays and Sundays, while Pemberton Market stays open another two hours daily. Expanded hours will need city approval.
“Old-timers will remember the convenience store site used to house the 24-hour Bread & Butter Konvenience store,” Newman writes, and before the “konvenience” store opened in February 2005, a 24-hour White Hen Pantry. “I’d love to see another 24-hour convenience store move in.”
The market was open for 85 years between two locations, Saidnawey told Newman on Tuesday. Before replacing Bread & Butter, it had been at Massachusetts and Rindge avenues.
With wine and beer sales possibly starting in June, there may be little gap in what’s available to buy locally.
Kate Mattes of Kate’s Mystery Books had blocked the sale of liquor at the neighboring Pemberton Farms, but she moved out “and sold her house to someone else who doesn’t object to the liquor license,” Newman says.
A stronger
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