PORTLAND, Maine — Many of Maine's most vibrant neighborhoods have a business at its heart.
It's the gathering place, lunch stop, or the one constant routine in someone's life. Anania's is that place on Portland's outer Congress Street.
That connection has carried Ed Anania to work each day. His father, also named Ed, opened the Anania's store with his siblings in 1963. Soon after, he moved down Congress Street and setup shop. Ed started working there at age 10 and for the past 30 years, he's run the show.
"I've lived in this neighborhood my whole life," Ed said standing at the cash register on a late October morning. "I grew up one block away this way," he pointed, "and then I lived one block the other direction. So, like, 25 years that way and 30 years this way."
Ed is not in charge alone. While Ed handled orders at the counter, his wife Barbara was out back, methodically removing blueberry turnovers from an oven, wrapping them, and then labeling them.
In the 1980s, Barbara left her nursing job to take care of their kids, but she said she got fidgety. So, she started making baked goods at home and bringing them to the store. It wasn't long before she too, got sucked into daily life alongside her husband.
"This is the mothership, and I am the mother," Barbara laughed.
In a city now world famous for its fine dining, you'd be hard-pressed to beat the "Brown Bag Special"— a small Italian sandwich, chips, one of Barbara's whoopie pies, and a soda for $10.
And so, the pair weathered years of busy, hot summer days and frigid snowstorms selling Italian sandwiches, pizzas, or just a six-pack of beer to a neighbor who wanted to come in and chat. But Barbara said the 2 a.m. alarm seemed to come earlier in recent years. And since the COVID-19 pandemic, finding enough workers for the shop proved difficult. They started thinking about their next chapter and together, came to a decision.
Ed and Barbara are calling it a career and have sold the Congress Street store.
Ed said by Nov. 9 they were under contract with a buyer and plan to hang up their aprons and turn off the lights by Nov. 15.
They have a second store across town on Washington Avenue. The manager there, Zach Lord, is set to buy that location.
"It really is pretty incredible to me," Lord said while hastily making Italian sandwiches alongside his staff. "I'm not from Portland originally. And coming here and seeing the legacy that he and his family have created here; really, these sandwiches are a part of people's lives."
Ed could not say what would become of his beloved shop on Congress Street. He said he expected the new owners would sell some sort of food, but couldn't confirm if it would remain a convenience store.