LEWISTON – Deals for a dollar.

That’s the come-on, and it works. It works so well, in fact, that Dollar Tree will soon open a store at the former Shaw’s supermarket off Lisbon Street.

The Dollar Tree store here will be about the 2,600th in the Chesapeake, Va.-based company’s chain. It had 2,579 Dollar Tree stores as of Tuesday, said spokesman Adam Bergman, and it’s on a roll, opening nearly a store a day over the coming weeks.

The Lewiston store will be joined by one opening in Sanford about the same time – toward the end of June.

They’ll complement Dollar Tree stores in Augusta, Biddeford and Windham.

The company also plans to open at least one store within days in North Dakota.

That’s significant, Bergman said, because it means Dollar Tree stores will be in every one of the contiguous 48 states.

Dollar Tree, founded in 1986 in Dalton, Ga., has become one of the NASDAQ’s top 100 companies. Its ticker symbol is “DLTR.”

Like a 5 & 10

“People love it,” Bergman said. The stores operate much “like old-fashioned 5 & 10-cent stores did,” he said.

Only now, with inflation, goods are priced at $1. Everything in the store is a buck, or less. Certain things – greeting cards, for example, or off-brand sodas such as Shasta beverages – are two for a buck. And that isn’t for junk, said Bergman.

Mostly, he said, Dollar Tree goes for name-brand products that people know and buy: Reynolds Wrap foil. Alberto VO5 shampoo. Heinz ketchup. Play-Doh toys. Frito-Lay chips.

Because Dollar Tree grew from toy store roots, Bergman said it continues to feature lots [email protected]