Ask anyone who has watched a small mountain town change over a decade and they will tell you the same worry: national chains move in, rents climb, and the family businesses that gave the place its personality quietly disappear. It is the plot of a hundred articles about towns from Stowe to Telluride, and it is the fear the Boston Globe raised directly about North Conway earlier this year, wondering aloud whether the Village would go the way of so many pretty towns before it.
Walk Main Street this summer and the actual turnover tells a different story. In the four years since a regional chain called Olympia Sports closed its North Conway Village doors, the Village's most visible storefront moments, one in 2024 and three more just this year, have all landed local operators. Nobody who left actually closed. They moved a few blocks, or a few miles, and the buildings they vacated filled back in with businesses that grew up here. If you live in North Conway, the practical version of this story is simple: your favorite shop probably did not vanish, it relocated, and knowing where is more useful than another list of Village attractions you already know by heart.
The Ski Shop Building's Third Act
The building at 2686 White Mountain Highway has had exactly two identities most residents remember. For decades it was Carroll Reed Ski Shop, the outfitter tied to Hannes Schneider and the earliest days of organized skiing in the valley. When Carroll Reed closed, the space became Olympia Sports, a regional chain that occupied the building for years before it shut down in 2022.
What replaced Olympia Sports is the part worth paying attention to. The Berry Companies, which owns the Eastern Slope Inn next door and has held Norcross Place since 1995, did not bring in another national retailer. They redeveloped the building into Norcross Place, now home to three businesses that all started somewhere else in the Mount Washington Valley: Cheese Louise, which began as a grilled cheese food truck out of three MWV college grads in 2018, Sap House Meadery, which has been making mead in Ossipee since 2011, and Saco River Brewing, which brews in Fryeburg, Maine. All three now share a building with a rooftop deck looking out at Cranmore on one side and the Moats on the other.
Saco River Brewing's founder and head brewer, Mason Irish, has lived in Center Conway for decades, and he put it plainly when the space opened: "It's the premier location in North Conway Village, with a rooftop deck that overlooks everything."
That single building turning over from a chain to three local operators is not a coincidence of timing. It is the clearest data point in the Village right now for which direction Main Street's ownership is actually moving.
Nobody Actually Left. They Just Moved.
The pattern holds beyond Norcross Place, and it shows up most clearly in two moves that residents have probably noticed without connecting.
Toy Chest, the toy store that has been part of North Conway Village for years, did not close. It relocated to Scenic Vista Plaza in Intervale, next to Trails End Ice Cream, across from the rest area where visitors pull off to take in the mountain view. The shop announced the move in February 2026 and had its official opening on June 15. If you drove past its old Village spot this year and assumed it shuttered, it is worth the short drive north to find it again.
27 North, the restaurant that had operated on Seavey Street, moved into the Eastern Slope Inn itself, marking the first time in the inn's history since the 1970s that guests can order breakfast on site. The Eastern Slope Inn has commanded the center of the Village for nearly a century, and adding a home-grown breakfast restaurant to a building that old is a meaningful shift in how the property functions day to day. The space 27 North left behind on Seavey Street did not sit empty. Rise and Dine Bistro opened there almost immediately, taking over a location that sits across a parking lot from Vito Marcello's Italian Bistro.
Here is what changed hands, and where things stand now:
| Business | Old Location | Current Location |
|---|---|---|
| Cheese Louise, Sap House Meadery, Saco River Brewing | Former Carroll Reed Ski Shop / Olympia Sports building | Norcross Place, 2686 White Mountain Highway |
| Toy Chest | North Conway Village | Scenic Vista Plaza, Intervale |
| 27 North | 27 Seavey Street | Eastern Slope Inn |
| Rise and Dine Bistro | New to the Village | 27 Seavey Street |
Read across that table and the theme is not decline, it is circulation. Every departure created room for either the same business in a better spot or another local operator ready to fill the gap within weeks.
The New Arrivals Skipped the Chains Too
If the Norcross Place turnover shows what happens when a chain leaves a building, White Mountain Sauna Haus shows what happens when a genuinely new concept enters the Village. It opened in January 2026 inside a restored 1800s barn next to the Local Grocer, with Cathedral Ledge Distillery right next door.
The business is owned by Levi Lucy, a North Conway native and former ER nurse, and Bryce Harrison, who grew up in town, left as soon as he could, and came back to raise a family and open Cheese Louise before this second venture. Neither of them is new to the valley, and neither built a concept borrowed from somewhere else. Lucy told Boston.com the sauna is "hitting capacity pretty much every single Saturday," with two traditional Finnish saunas, three plunge pools, and a deck looking at Cathedral Ledge and White Horse Ledge that has drawn visitors from as far as Finland and Norway alongside the regulars from town.
That a wellness concept this specific can open in a converted barn and fill up on weekends within its first few months says something about who is actually driving new business formation in the Village right now. It is not a franchise development team running site selection models. It is two guys who grew up here building something they wanted to exist.
What This Means If You Live Here
For residents trying to keep their bearings through a year of storefront shuffling, the practical guide looks like this:
- Looking for Toy Chest: it is in Intervale now, at Scenic Vista Plaza next to Trails End Ice Cream, not in the Village.
- Want breakfast at 27 North: head to the Eastern Slope Inn, where it now operates for the first time since the 1970s.
- Craving Rise and Dine: it took over the old 27 North spot on Seavey Street, across the lot from Vito Marcello's.
- Curious about the old ski shop building: it is Norcross Place now, with Cheese Louise, Sap House Meadery, and Saco River Brewing Taphaus all under one roof and a shared rooftop deck.
- Looking for something new: White Mountain Sauna Haus sits next to the Local Grocer, right by Cathedral Ledge Distillery, and tends to fill up by Saturday afternoon.
None of this required a single national chain to move in, and none of it required a beloved local business to actually shut its doors for good. What it required was a handful of longtime residents willing to bet on new concepts and existing tenants willing to leave a spot for a better one down the street.
The worry about small mountain towns losing themselves to outside money is a real pattern in plenty of places. It just is not the pattern showing up on North Conway's Main Street this year. The Village's storefronts are still being claimed by people who grew up here, and the buildings that turn over keep landing in local hands.
If you are watching how North Conway's Village continues to evolve and want a read on what that means for property values or timing a move here, Pinkham Real Estate has been tracking the Mount Washington Valley longer than almost anyone. Contact our team to start your Mount Washington Valley search.