By Sally Quale
The Colebrook Store will reopen in early to mid-June. Its new proprietor, Addison Humes, a cheerful, enthusiastic and determined young man, brings with him some Colebrook family history. His grandfather, Warren Humes, a veteran of WWI who died ten years ago at the age of 101, was a Colebrook resident and a former member of the Zoning Board.
Humes speaks with great sentimentality of his childhood memories of the Colebrook Store in the 1970’s and 1980’s when visiting his grandparents’ farm on Church Hill Road, where he now lives full time. He remembers it as a real country store, a must-stop place for the locals, and that is exactly the kind of store he plans to recreate.

New proprietor Addison Humes Todd awaits customers at the Colebrook Store.

The store hours will be 6 a.m. to 7 p.m. and he will offer fresh-baked goods (a baker has been hired and Humes promises the return of the peasant bread, jam and éclairs) and a deli menu, along with emergency groceries, coffee, chatter and the essential community bulletin board. To welcome more sit-down visitors throughout the day, he has added more tables and chairs to the main part of the store, the side room and the front porch.
Humes is thrilled to be bringing back the store he remembers to the community, but don’t be misled by his initial “simple” foray into the enterprise. He has big plans for further down the road, along with a creditable resume to support his dreams: culinary training at Johnson & Wales and a successful fifteen-year career as a chef, for the last two years at the Interlaken Inn in Salisbury.
“I am a chef,” he says, “so although I am starting off in a simple fashion with a deli-type menu, I hope to slowly offer additional dishes and develop a larger menu as I see my customer base grow. I would then like to make the side room available for special parties.”
It has taken some time to refurbish the store building, which has remained closed and unattended to for the past several years (a new owner bought the building in 2009 and is renting the space to Humes). Extensive mold required complete reconstruction of the first floor and installation of all new restaurant equipment.
Old photographs that Humes rescued from the sodden basement and has hung on the walls will remind visitors they are in a building listed on the National Historic Register, in fact “the oldest continuously active general store in Connecticut”.

Photo By Sally Quale