Anania’s Variety on Congress Street will close Friday, ending a long-running family grocery era

A Portland corner-store institution is ending operations

Anania’s Variety Store, a family-run corner store and sandwich shop on Congress Street in Portland, Maine, is scheduled to close on Friday, concluding more than six decades at its current site and marking another shift in the city’s neighborhood retail landscape.

The Congress Street store has operated in its present location at 1227 Congress St. since 1973. The business traces its roots to Edward Anania Sr., who opened the Congress Street store in 1963. His son, Ed Anania Jr., has worked there since childhood and has been the public face of the store in recent years.

Why the store is closing and what is known about next steps

The decision to close has been framed as a retirement choice rather than a collapse in demand. Ed Anania Jr. has said the store’s business remained strong, but that after decades of long hours the family is stepping away from day-to-day operations.

The closing date reflects a change from earlier plans. The owners had initially signaled that the Congress Street location would remain open until Christmas Eve, contingent on a sale. The timeline moved forward when a buyer emerged sooner than expected, accelerating the shutdown to Friday.

• Location closing: Anania’s Variety Store, 1227 Congress St., Portland, Maine
• Planned final day: Friday (following a previously discussed Christmas Eve closing date)
• Primary reason cited: retirement after decades of operating the business

What happens to other Anania’s locations

The Congress Street store is not the only site associated with the Anania’s name. A separate Anania’s location on Washington Avenue has been in the process of being sold to its manager, who has also been described as a minority business partner. That transaction has been presented as a way for at least one Anania’s-branded store to continue operating under new ownership.

A third Anania’s in South Portland previously closed in 2018. The property later reopened as the Ferry Village Market, underscoring how legacy neighborhood storefronts can persist even as operators change.

A broader change in Portland’s corner-store culture

The closing also lands as a cultural marker for Portland’s historic pattern of small, family-operated food stores—many of them linked to Italian-American families—once common across the city. Over time, those independent stores have been increasingly displaced by larger convenience formats and chain operators, changing not only shopping options but also the everyday social role such stores have traditionally played in neighborhoods.

The shift from locally run corner stores to standardized convenience retail has been reshaping Portland for decades; this closure represents another step in that long-running transition.

For customers, the immediate impact is straightforward: one of the city’s best-known deli-and-grocer hybrids will no longer be available on Congress Street after Friday, while the future of the Washington Avenue operation depends on the completion of its ownership transfer.