Even as a boy, Ralph Johnston was an independent businessman. When he was growing up in Washington, he got so much into photography that he and his older brother opened a photo lab to develop and print from black & white film. They called it Sunset Acres Photo Lab, and being on Route 220, customers came from Augusta to Waldoboro. He was 14 and his brother was 16. Yes, there was the stint working for a company after college when he was an assistant production manager for West Point Pepperell Textile Mill in Biddeford. But with demand outpacing production, Ralph thought he’d rather be his own boss. When he learned that Earl Winchenbach was thinking of selling Wink’s Groceries on Bremen and Main, he made him an offer. Earl took it because he knew both Ralph’s and Ralph’s wife’s families. Ralph opened Medomak Variety in 1976 when the country was in the depths of a recession. But being the only beer store in town, he did okay, emptying the Bud and Schlitz trucks each time they pulled into Waldoboro. Ten years later, Ralph was ready for something else. He put the store on the market on a Friday and on Monday morning, he had an offer. Without anything else lined up, he joined his wife’s family construction company. Besides, Ralph had a knack for plumbing, electricity, and carpentry. Two years in, Ralph got the itch for another store. Bear Hill Market had gone into receivership. Ralph bought it, renovated it, and turned it into the hardware store it is today.
One of the first things Carl Poole (of Poole Brothers Lumber in Damariscotta) said to me was, “Ralph, you will be giving away one of your biggest assets every day — your knowledge and ability to help the customer.” And over the years, I’ve found it to be true. I even have people who will buy things over at Lowe’s, and then they’ll come over here and ask me how to install the thing. I help people. Sometimes that drives me crazy, but they are potential customers.
You see, it’s always been very difficult to get a plumber or an electrician. That’s where I come in. They’ll walk in with this piece of pipe in their hand and say, “I gotta fix this thing.” If I can help them fix it, I’ll just talk them through it. Sometimes it takes time.
But you’re always at the mercy of your customers. You never really know if your customer base is going to stay with you or not. I don’t have the same customers that I had 33 years ago. Back then, people, the older people liked to shop locally. They were more self-reliant and more apt to do things themselves. If they had plumbing problem, they wanted to fix it themselves. And they were very loyal. Many of them have passed.
A good day is when we’re so busy out there that the time goes really fast. A bad day is when it’s slow. Then we find other thigs to do like writing orders, talking with companies. Rainy days are not good, generally. Summer is much better than winter. A really bad day is when there’s a lot of snow on the ground. But, if there’s a snowstorm, we might be busy because people will be after salt and sand and other things. Days you’d think we might not be busy, we might be. Another kind of store might not be.
We were very busy during COVID because people were staying home. They didn’t want to go to the big stores. They wanted to stay in town. They had some extra time, so they were doing projects, which meant that we were especially busy. Some of this has carried on.
We also cater to the clam diggers. We make sure that the price is right for them, like their blue clam gloves, something they use on a day-to-day basis. I was having a hard time getting those and I’ve just gotten a secondary supplier for them. That other company couldn’t promise them until December, and I couldn’t live with that. If the clammers are in here every day after gloves, they’re also going to be after other things. And if they don’t come in for the gloves, that means I’m losing sales on other merchandise.
It’s always a challenge. You never know if things are going to be the same a year from now or if things will be different. One of my own challenges is that I didn’t grow up with the Internet. When we started here, I wanted to get a fax machine, and Elaine said, “What do you need that machine for?” This was long before I had a computer. Now I’m trying to get used to the idea of putting things online and I’m just not very good at it. I do it, but it takes a lot of time.
But financial things are always the biggest challenge. Like needing to re-finance when interest rates are high. Banks don’t give fixed rates for a business. They’re not allowed to. So, you’re at their mercy, and we were not fortunate enough to inherit the business. We had to figure out how to make it go on our own.
But I like working with people. I always did. If you’re not good with people, you don’t want to be in this business. You’ve got to be willing to help them. And to know how to help them. I always tell people, “I’ll do this as long as I enjoy it.” Of course, I’m almost eighty so I could retire.
Leave a Reply