Longtime owner selling Baker’s Country Store in Conway

CONWAY — After running Baker’s Country Store for 40 years, owner Helen Baker is stepping back and selling the business.

According to Baker, 72, her mother, Marie Weeks, bought the store in 1972 before selling it to her in 1985. Baker said her mother taught her how to bake the store’s signature pies, apple fritters, muffins and other baked sweets, recounting how she wrestled with the pie crust as her mom provided encouragement until she mastered it.

Since posting a photo of their “for sale” sign on Facebook on Aug. 28, Baker said several customers at the counter have asked her, “Where am I going to get my homemade pie?” To which Baker replies, “Let me give you my house number!”

She said no individual or business interested in purchasing Baker’s Country Store has stepped forward yet.

For Baker, the most difficult aspect of leaving the store will be leaving her crew and customers, whom she called “my people.”

“They’re all like family,” Baker said.

When she opens the store at 6 a.m. each morning, Baker said she jokes and teases the first customers through the door, often regulars.

“I can tell you what time every guy is going to show up in the morning, what I’m going to give him to eat and what time he’s going to leave,” Baker said. Some of her longtime regulars, including some who have died in recent years, watched her grow up in the store. “A couple of them were like my second father, because they’ve known me since birth.”

Over her 53 years as a fixture at Baker’s Country Store, Baker said she has seen customers who first reached for the candy and snow cones as small children become the parents who bring their own kids back to the shop.

Neighbors demonstrated their loyalty to the Conway staple after a flood resulted in tens of thousands of dollars worth of damage in July 2024. Residents and local businesses rallied to raise money and help Baker with repairs. Residents gave money via a GoFundMe; members of Baker’s family organized a chicken barbecue last October at the Conway Sportsman’s Club to raise funds for repairs, attracting more than 200 people; and local businesses like Yankee Candle donated to help the small-town store bounce back.

“They all came together, they did. It was fantastic,” Baker said.

Repairs cost more than $80,000, as they needed to stabilize the embankment above the South River, install a new 3,000-gallon septic system and redo the parking lot.

Baker is also proud that her business won a Howdy Award last year in the retail category. The Greater Springfield Convention and Visitors Bureau, doing business as Explore Western Mass, awards the Howdy Award to “people in the hospitality industry who are great at their jobs,” the nonprofit’s website reads.

Baker will join Howard Boyden of Boyden Brothers Maple to share stories about their businesses at the Conway Historical Society, 50 Main St., on Tuesday, Sept. 9, at 7:30 p.m.

Once she is able to find a new owner for the store and ease into retirement, Baker said she plans on staying in Conway with her husband Robert Baker, the longtime fire chief. She wants to potentially spend more time traveling and serving as a substitute chef at Conway Grammar School in retirement.

“It’s just time,” she said simply.