Owners to close longtime grocery

WANAKENA — The Wanakena General Store, a community center as much as it is a place to buy milk and vegetables, will close at the end of the year because its proprietors need a break.

Sermon L. Craig, a year-round resident of the hamlet, said he was saddened when he first heard the news.

"It's an important service," Mr. Craig said. "On the other hand, Dave Ziemba and his wife have been serving us 10 hours a day, seven days a week, for 18 years. I'm pleased for them as a family. I'm optimistic someone else will step forward and provide the same service, at least for several months of the year."

Wanakena has about 50 year-round residents. Its population swells to about 350 in the warmer months, when seasonal residents return, and it also is visited by hikers and campers.

Mr. Ziemba, known as the unofficial mayor of Wanakena, is a school bus driver, works at the sewer plant, voluntarily helps run the water plant, shuts camps for seasonal residents, organizes festivals, including an annual Octoberfest, and cuts lawns.

"You can hear him sometimes cutting grass at 10 o'clock at night," said William B. Gleason, a seasonal resident and Wanakena's historian.

Mr. Ziemba said he and his wife, Susan K., who works at Clifton-Fine Hospital, Star Lake, as well as in the store, want to visit grandchildren in Virginia.

"It's a semi-retirement," he said. "I did it because of time. Seventy hours a week, that's like two jobs. It is a weight off the shoulders."

The Ziembas live above the 900-square-foot store and don't want to sell the building, which also is home to the post office.

More than the convenience of not having to drive a minimum 16-mile round trip to Star Lake for groceries, Mr. Gleason said, he will miss the camaraderie of the store.

"There sit the old people having free coffee and shooting the breeze," he said. "If you want to find out what's going on in town, you go there and listen."

But Mr. Ziemba said that just because the store will shut down doesn't mean the coffeepot won't be on.

"If nobody leases it, the door might be open for more of a community space," he said. "You never know what might happen."

Local farmers might offer vegetables at a summer market, and soda suppliers have promised vending machines if need be, Mr. Ziemba said.

A wood-paneled vintage pay phone on his porch, on Verizon's hit list because of a modernization plan, will stay through a lease arrangement or Mr. Ziemba will purchase a similar one. The phone, in which campers and summer residents deposited $38.50 this year, failed to make Verizon's annual minimum of $50.

Mr. Gleason said he had hoped Mr. Ziemba's business would become as much of a fixture as the old phone.

"I hate to see it leave," he said. "There's not that many stores like that anymore."

Mr. Ziemba may be in for a surprise as well. In 18 years, he hasn't been in another grocery store.

"This is going to be a bigger shock for me," he said.