Laconia Spa adds food to its convenient offerings

Patrick Collins has owned the Laconia Spa — the "biggest little store in town" — for about four years. When he first stepped into the store, he said, he saw the opportunity for food service. It took a while, but yesterday he saw his business sell its first order of lunch.

The Spa is one of four stores in the state owned between Collins and his wife Michele. Each one is unique and, like the Spa, idiosyncratic to the community they're in. What he saw, though, when he first visited the store, was a business that needed some attention to better serve its Church Street clientele.

"It needed a lot of work just to be cleaned up, to make it more appealing to the neighborhood," he said. He "literally gutted the place," replaced the lighting, floors and display racks. He also moved the checkout counter out of the middle of the store and back into space that was previously used for storage, revealing much more of the 2,900 square feet of the store, more of which could be used to display merchandise.

Collins said the store services a mix of people, including the "locals" who live nearby and arrive by foot or bicycle as well as the commuters whose path to and from work passes the Spa.

Morning customers will stop for their newspaper and pack of smokes. Later in the day the Spa will sell the usual convenience store items: snack foods, sodas and similar drinks, and lots of cigarettes and beer.

And now, food. Collins has experience serving food items from his other stores, especially Bread and Butter Market in Somersworth, a place he says is known for its subs. He's offering the same subs at the Spa, but he thinks the place will become known for its burgers and Mexican offerings, which he was careful to price at a point affordable to his patrons.

Why burgers and Mexican? "The main reason just came from looking around. We're ringed by pizza and sub shops. I wanted to bring this community something that doesn't exist... What I've tried to do is provide the people around here food service and convenience items," he said.

Collins assured loyal patrons of the 62 year-old business that the addition of the food counter won't detract from the other items they've come to depend upon finding at the Spa. "It's always been the neighborhood store, I want to keep it the neighborhood store. Everybody knows this place," he said.