Grab a cup of coffee, pick up a hammer, continue with your chill Maine self and let’s get this Buzz going.

Remember how Break coffee shop closed last October in Auburn’s Engine House?

Those popular vegan doughnuts swam across the river, dried themselves off and found a new home.

Break is coming to 50 Lisbon St. under new ownership.

Nikkita Sampson and Shivam Kumar, a Lewiston couple and former Break regulars, will reopen it in late winter.

The doughnuts are staying, as is a majority of the menu, “with adding our own little twist here and there, since we do have a culinary background,” Sampson said Wednesday.

Look for more details in the coming month or two.

Coming, going

Heirloom Arrangements opened in 2018 at 50 Lisbon St. after an Auburn couple bought the building and themed their shop around flowers in antique vases, pitchers and jars. It closed in December.

Dan Coleman at Androvise Realty, the selling agent, said owners Kim and Rick Caldwell had full time jobs beyond the shop and weren’t getting important family time in.

And speaking of family

Stevens Hardware in Sabattus is now Sturdy Hardware with a father and son as owner and store manager.

The new name is a play on their last name, Sturtevant.

Tyler Sturtevant said shortly after his father, Jeff, became manager of Depot Square Hardware and Variety in Mechanic Falls five years ago, they started talking about running their own hardware store someday.

After graduating from college with a business degree, Tyler got a job at Stevens Hardware in February 2017. Owner John Bade was looking at slowing down, eventually.

“He trained me up and we were able to buy the store,” Tyler said.

They took over Feb. 1. He said their working motto is “serving God and serving the community.”

“You’re just constantly helping people with projects and solving problems with them,” Tyler said. “There’s so much versatility in hardware, there’s so much to know and it’s a constant learning process.”

They’ve got big plans for the inside and have moved a busy rental business into warehouse space out back to free up room for a new sporting goods area. It’s still being built out, but will eventually have hunting, fishing and hiking supplies, along with outdoor gear.

“We’d like to get in a nice line of boots and clothing,” Tyler said. “We didn’t actually expand the footprint of the store, but expanding into this new market.”

He’s hoping for that to be fully built up by May.

And speaking of construction

The Szanton Company’s 48 Hampshire St. development in Auburn is three months away from opening.

The 53-unit building is on pace to open in early May, according to a news release. It will have one-, two- and three-bedroom apartments as well as a mix of market-rate and affordable units.

Market-rate units are expected to range from $925 to $1,350 a month and affordable from roughly $600 to $1,015.

Planning for the project started in the summer of 2017 and involved buying a city lot.

“We’re thrilled to be at the point where we can start meeting with potential tenants and showing them our building,” President Nathan Szanton said in the release. “The apartments aren’t completely finished yet, but folks can see mostly how they’ll look. By the end of March, we’ll have a completely finished unit to show people.”

Fun with numbers

Vacation rental site Vacasa.com ran its booking numbers for December 2019 through February 2020 and ranked Newry as its fourth most popular skiing destination this winter, ahead of Killington, Vermont.

Another cool number? We’re so keeping our cool in Maine.

InMyArea.com says it reviewed 1 million customer service calls from late 2019 to early 2020 using speech analysis tools to measure the agitation in people’s voices.

Maine was the second-least agitated state in the country, getting our dander up 7.68% of the time. That compares with South Dakota’s most agitated 13.3% of the time.

Vermont in this round came out ahead as the chillest state.

Quick hits about business comings, goings and happenings. Have a Buzzable tip? Contact staff writer Kathryn Skelton at 689-2844 or kskelton@sunjournal.com.

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