Aug 3, 2007

Four Island General Stores Stock Very Specific Warmth Along With Life NecessitiesBy Rachel Nava RohrMVGazette.com

They sell everything from fingernail clippers to fine cheeses, but the Island’s four general stores stock more than variety and necessity. Each has its own culture on the front porch (or stoop, or patio) that beckons sitting and has been known to grow friendships from the seeds of idle conversation.

A purist would tell you that Alley’s General Store – the hub of West Tisbury life since 1858 – is the only true general store on the Island (at what other can you buy a can of paint and get a pane of glass cut to fit a window?).

Indeed, it has been the meeting place for generations of Islanders and today is a one-stop shop not only for hardware and grocery items, but psychedelic toasters, leopard-print brooms and bacon-flavored toothpicks (“bacon is classy” boasts the pig on the package).

But the mom-and-pop teams that own and seasonally operate the Chilmark Store, Menemsha Market and Katama General Store also carry the hardware, health and beauty aids, groceries and cleaning supplies that let neighbors avoid a drive down-Island or a trek through human and vehicular traffic.

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