Peterborough’s corner grocery store, Roy’s Market, changed hands Saturday after being in the same family for 67 years. Peter Robinson, who bought the store from his uncle, Albert Roy, in 2006, said the transition is bittersweet. 

“We’ve been very fortunate. We’ve had wonderful people, we’ve had a wonderful experience here. I think the town will be very pleased with the new owners, and that’s what matters most,” Robinson said.

The new owners, Julianna Takacs and Brad Miller, approached Robinson about opening a coffee shop in the empty space at the west end of Maggie’s Market in  February 2022. Maggie’s Market, Roy’s and the former Little Roy’s were all owned by Robinson and his wife, Amilbia.

“Then Peter came to us and said, ‘Hey, if you’re looking to run a small business that really impacts the community and is very supported by the community, would you consider buying the store?’” Miller said. “We started to think about it. We knew we wanted to work together, and then we looked at the skills we already have and we said, ‘Maybe we can do this.’ We’ve both run businesses. We’ve both been entrepreneurs. I’ve worked in food service and retail, and Julianna has worked in operations. We realized maybe this was exactly what we were looking for.”

Miller and Takacs, who married in 2016, had recently returned to Peterborough after four years in the mountains of New Mexico.

“It was beautiful, but we really missed the community, and our friends,” Miller said. “That’s what was lacking. The community here just pulled us back, and we looked around to see how we could give back to that community.”

Robinson, 73,  decided to sell the business four years ago, but the right buyer had not yet come along.

“We were very guarded about who we would considering selling to,” Robinson said. “This type of store is endangered breed. The Amazons, the Walmarts – they are killing the small businesses, creating sprawl and just taking the fabric of the community with them. In most towns, stores like this no longer exist. I had real estate developers approach me. I had some buyers who only wanted to focus on lottery tickets, beer, cigarettes. Julianna and Brad care about the community, have real relationships with the community and have the skills to run the business.”

Robinson, who grew up in Jaffrey, never intended to enter the family grocery business. With four uncles and two cousins running Roy’s stores at different locations in southern New Hampshire, Robinson knew all about the demands of running a grocery store.

“My uncle always said, ‘Your work will never be done with this business,’” Robinson said with a laugh. “And he was right.”

As a teenager, Robinson loved to work. He recalls one year he worked for Ronald Belletete, bussed tables at the Monadnock Inn and mowed lawns, all the same summer. Robinson chose to attend Northeastern University specifically because of the co-op program, so he could work while getting his degree. After Robinson took a job in university food service, the department offered him a full-time job, allowing him to leave the kitchen to attend class for his whole four years of school. This first food-service job led to a summer job cooking on the Edward Tabor, Tabor Academy’s ship.

“I had no idea how to cook when I took the job, but we were headed to Bermuda, and I figured they were not going to turn the ship around because the cook was bad.  I read the Betty Crocker cookbook every night, and I learned how to cook,” Robinson said.

Robinson’s long career in the food business included sales for Borden Dairy, starting his own food brokerage and running a successful ice cream truck for 19 years. After that business had a rocky merger, Robinson wanted a change of scene.

“I had always dreamed about the Caribbean at night, so I decided to give it a try,” he said.

Arriving in St. John in the U.S. Virgin Islands, Robinson knew the island did not offer a lot of high-level jobs, so he created a “dumbed down” resume for himself. Soon he was teaching snorkel lessons and assisting with property management. This led to a successful three years in real estate on St. John, but after the island got hit by a hurricane, Robinson began to think about coming back to New Hampshire.

“You can’t really build and grow anything long-term in the islands, because every three or four years, a hurricane comes along and wipes out everything, and you have to start all over,” Robinson said.

At the same time, technology was coming into the workplace, and Robinson wanted to acquire the skills he knew he would need to stay competitive. He bought a business in Exeter, and around the same time, met his future wife, Amilbia, through mutual friends. When Robinson’s uncle Albert Roy tried to convince him to buy Roy’s Market in 2006, it was Amilbia who tipped the balance on the decision. Amilbia, who grew up on a farm in Colombia, has a strong interest in community farming and food.

“My wife said, ‘You’d be great at retail,” Robinson said. “But then she absolutely jumped right in with no experience and just thrived.”

Looking back on his 18 years at Roy’s, Robinson has nothing but positive memories. Many local residents recall the role Roy’s Market played in the ice storm of December 2008, when the store stayed open and provided groceries for people with no power or means of cooking.

“The Health Department came and said we had to shut down during the ice storm, because we had no refrigeration,” Robinson said. “I said to the guy, ‘It’s 38 degrees inside my store!’  I had a line of people down the block waiting for food. But he said we had to shut down. So we asked everyone to wait, and he watched me lock the door. Then he drove away, and I unlocked the door, and we kept handing out food to people. I did not want people to  have to go home and come back and spend more time driving around in those conditions – the ice, the wires and trees down all over the place.”

Because there was no power, and no one could use credit cards,  Robinson and his staff walked down the line of customers standing outside in the cold with a pad of chits, noting everyone’s order and what they owed.

“And every single person paid me,” Robinson said,

The store faced another challenge during COVID, when the staff brought preordered bags of groceries out to customers’ cars for no extra charge. Robinson said he was fortunate they were able to pivot to online grocery sales to compensate for the lack of food traffic in the store. Little Roy’s, which had closed at the start of the pandemic, became a staging area for the huge numbers of online grocery orders.

“Having to shut down Little Roy’s was the saddest thing about the pandemic. We had a salad bar, and we had people who refused to wear masks, and we just couldn’t do it,” Robinson said.

Takacs and Miller are excited about the possibility of reopening Little Roy’s, which had been a thriving deli and salad bar before the pandemic.

“We’re not ready to say what exactly we’re going to do yet, but we are going to revive Little Roy’s in some way, ” Takacs said. “Everyone talks about the sandwiches and how great that was for the downtown.”

Robinson and his wife are looking forward to spending their first winter of retirement in Naples, Fla., and to spending time with their grandchildren in the Washington, D.C., area. They have no exact plans for where they will spend summers.

“The grandkids will be the deciding factor,” Robinson said.

Miller and Takacs are grateful that Robinson intends to stay involved throughout the transition.

“He’s already reminded us to call about the turkeys, which customers want certain cuts of meat going into the holidays,” Miller said.

“We feel like we are being handed a family business,” Takacs added. “We won’t be making any big changes anytime soon. Peter has a  formula that works, and the community supports it.  The name, the hours, nothing is going to change. Even the staff is staying the same.”

“Really, it’s a stewardship,” Miller said. “We’re just taking care of what is already here.”

Roy’s Market was scheduled to be closed at the beginning of the week during the transition in ownership.