BUXTON — As a kid, Garrett Plummer loved going across town with his mom to pick up groceries. He was proud his name was on the store and that everyone in town knew where it was.

Behind the meat counter, he’d find his grandfather, Reginald Plummer Sr., and great-uncle, Donald Plummer, who always wore a bow tie.

“They’d say, ‘Do you want a piece of cheese or a red hot dog?’ We all loved eating the red hot dogs cold,” said Plummer, who is now in his 50s and owns Plummer’s Shop ‘n Save in Buxton with his brother, Troy Plummer, and their cousin Chris Sanborn. They are the fourth generation of the Plummer family to run the business and some of their children have joined them to carry on the legacy.

This weekend, they will celebrate the company’s 100th anniversary with giveaways and sales at the grocery store and their hardware stores in Buxton, Limerick, Gorham, Waterboro and Westbrook. In the grocery store, customers can browse through a small museum that highlights Plummer’s long history in the community.

“It’s very rare today to celebrate 100 years,” Linda Strugis, of Saco, said as she and her husband, Jim, picked out produce on Friday morning. Above them, oversized gold balloons spelled out “100 years.”

P.W. Plummer and Sons was started by Percy William Plummer, who was born in Kennebunkport in 1896 and worked in the Saco Lowell Shops in Biddeford as a teen. After a brief stint in the factory, he went to work at the Cole Bros. Store in East Raymond. He bought the store in 1923 and ran it for five years before relocating to West Buxton to find a larger population base to support his business.

During the Great Depression, P.W. Plummer briefly lost his business, but within a year scraped together enough money to open another store in Hollis, just across the river from West Buxton. In the spring of 1936, the great flood swept Plummer’s store and other buildings down the Saco River.

Undeterred, he rebuilt and by the 1950s, his sons – Reg, Pete and Donald – were all working with him. They opened a second store in Standish, then another in Bar Mills. After Pete Plummer’s death in 1971, the family consolidated the stores into one supermarket on Parker Farm Road, where it continues to operate.

“They kept coming back and starting over. It’s fascinating how resilient they are,” said Cindy Plummer, the company’s financial manager and wife of president Troy Plummer. “We appreciate everything that happened before us.”

HARDWARE, TOO

From its earliest days, Plummer’s included hardware aisles, as many general stores did. In 1983, the family moved the hardware items into a store next door. The hardware business continued to expand, most recently adding the stores in Gorham and Westbrook. The company now employs 130 people across all six stores.

Over time, the grocery store has expanded and carries a wider range of products, but some things never change. It’s still the type of store where employees know the regular customers and when to expect them. There’s a weekly bankroll drawing and holiday contests. Pictures colored by local children hang on the window behind the registers.

And then there’s the meat counter.

“I think they do the best meat around,” said Lorraine LaCourse, of Saco, who stops in when she’s in the area to do her banking.

Todd Townsend, who manages the meat department, has worked at Plummer’s off and on over the past 29 years. The meat counter is “what brings everybody back,” he said. But he knows people also appreciate the type of customer service they get in a small, family-run store.

“It’s like a family here,” he said.

Long before she started working at the Plummer’s in Buxton, Janice Grant, 72, was a regular customer. As a little girl, she lived near the Standish Plummer’s, where she would go to buy her parents little Christmas gifts from the hardware aisle. She moved to Buxton when she was 10, not far from the store on the Hollis side of the river.

Grant remembers talking to Don and Reg Sr., who were both “very social,” she said.

“If you asked for anything, they’d get it for you,” she said.

Three months after retiring from her family’s lawn and garden business nine years ago, Grant decided she missed interacting with customers. She’s now the produce manager at the grocery store and loves talking with people when they come in.

MUSEUM DISPLAY

As the 100th anniversary approached, Grant, Cindy Plummer and Carlene Velazquez, who also works in produce, set up the museum display. There are dozens of old photos and newspaper clippings, sale flyers and uniforms worn throughout the decades. In one display case, Don Plummer’s bowties sit near the lunch box that belonged to Reg Plummer Sr.

On nearby tables are cash registers, scales and the mimeograph used to print sale flyers. A Jordan’s Meats pig that once sat behind the meat counter is once again on display, a little rough around the edges but still jolly.

“We don’t throw things away,” Cindy Plummer said. “The history is very meaningful to the family.”

The display brought back many memories for everyone in the family and for longtime customers. On the Plummer’s Facebook page, customers have posted about their memories of shopping in the store and of the people who have worked there.

“It’s neat how much people are interested in it,” Garrett Plummer said.

Many of the things on display have been sitting in the back of the store, where Luke Plummer liked to spend time when he was little and would visit his dad at work. Now 18, he’s a fifth-generation employee and works at the store while attending the University of Southern Maine. He doesn’t know for sure where his career will take him, but he’s happy to be part of the family business.

“It means a lot and all of us care about keeping the store going,” he said.

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