On a Friday night at 7 p.m, four out of five businesses in downtown Concord have closed for the night.
The time is the doorstep of the weekend: Paid parking meters have hibernated for the night just as patrons arrive for shows at the Capitol Center for the Arts or Red River Theatre.
Of the 43 storefronts out of 183 with the lights still on, most are restaurants. At the gateway into downtown from the north, newcomers like Buba Kitchen and the trendy Social Club Creamery beckon passersby alongside a longtime fixture, the Barley House.
Across the street, it’s a different story.
Nearly the entire Western side of Main Street sits dark, all the way from Endicott Furniture northward past the State House.
Two hours later, the number of open businesses drops by half, and by 11 p.m., Concord’s downtown nightlife is limited to just five options, most of which have deep roots downtown, including Margaritas, Tandy’s, Penuche’s, and the Draft.
The Monitor compiled an inventory of the storefront spaces on and around Main Street, categorizing them by type, noting businesses’ tenures, hours and landlords. This data was used to build an interactive rendering of Main Street, where readers can pinpoint a day and time and simulate a stroll downtown.
The map reveals tidbits of information that might have flown under the radar, like the fact that 90 Low serves food as early as 10 am on Sundays or that the Works Cafe, open seven days a week from 6 a.m. to 8 p.m., guarantees coffee aficionados access to a latté almost any time of day. This map is intended to serve as a community resource, providing information and sparking conversation about the city’s core.
On a Wednesday at noon, Main Street is firing on almost all cylinders. As people descend into Dos Amigos for lunch, deposit a check at Merrimack County Savings Bank, or stop to grab a birthday card for a friend at Prickly Porcupine, a total of 145 storefronts — about 80% — are open for business.
As anyone who has been downtown on a Monday evening knows, it’s not just how much is open, but what there is to choose from.
On the whole, retail has the biggest presence, occupying almost a third of the sidewalk space.
Services, broadly tallied, make up another quarter. More than 15% of storefronts belong to office-like spaces, from banks and law firms to real estate consultants. Cosmetic businesses make up 11%, including hair or nail salons, tattoo parlors and everything in between.
Nearly all of the businesses in these categories – retail, cosmetics, health, services and offices, together comprising around 60% of downtown – hold regular 9-5 business hours or close to them.
Less than a quarter of the storefronts on and around Main Street, about 24%, are occupied by restaurants – including coffee shops, cafes and bars – per the Monitor’s analysis. In the warmer months, their outdoor seating spills out onto the sidewalks and into roped-off parking spaces.
The restaurant mix includes a balance of newcomers and stalwarts.
The blue awning of the newly-opened Yamas Greek Eatery invites passers-by to take a peek inside and stay for a drink while sampling the menu. In Eagle Square, Table Bakery, with its small plates on weekend evenings and baked goods in the mornings, consistently garners a line. At the intersection of Main Street and Loudon Road, New Everest Momo and Curry brings a taste of Nepal to downtown.
Under new ownership, Cheers is returning to its roots. Weathering the pandemic in stride, Siam Orchid recently expanded, adding the After Thai Dessert House out back. Even as the Concord Casino was forced to close, Andy Sanborn’s The Draft Sports Bar remains one of the few places consistently open past midnight.
This age range among restaurants is representative of businesses downtown as a whole: the oldest ones have been in the area since the mid-1800s, while eight businesses have opened their doors since the start of this year – including a dance studio and a stationery store.
Turnover is ever-present. Since Main Street is a sought-after location, many rents can be too high for small businesses struggling to make a profit. For other places, plans for retirement without a new owner lined up have led to closures.
The desirability of the location, though, means it’s relatively rare for a location to linger without a tenant.
Seventeen downtown storefronts are currently empty. Six of them have been vacant for less than half a year. Only two have been empty since before 2020.
On a quintessential New England Main Street, the bright hours of the weekend are both the busiest with visitors and the most picturesque.
In Concord, weekends tell a tale of two cities.
Main Street is bustling at 10 a.m. on Saturday mornings, especially in the summer.
The farmers market lines Capitol Street, with colorful tents punctuating the whole block. Shoppers often clutch a cup from nearby Revelstoke, Brothers Cortado or Totally Tea and Coffee. A little less than half – 78 out of 183 – of businesses are open. Many of the ones that are closed are Monday-through-Friday offices that will never open for the day. Others are restaurants that will begin serving food around midday or later.
On Sunday mornings at 10, when many people are at church, less than two dozen businesses display open signs in their windows. With 87.5% of Main Street asleep on Sunday mornings, sit-down breakfast is a rarity offered at Street, 90 Low and the long-awaited arrival of downtown newcomer the Friendly Toast. Eight places serve food or coffee at this time of day and five retailers are available to shoppers.
It’s been ten years since Concord completed the revitalization of Main Street. The anniversary marks a chance to reignite the debate about what the city envisions for its core.
In a series of stories in the coming days and throughout the summer, the Monitor will unpack what this data shows – and doesn’t – about how much Main Street has changed since its facelift, and probe what the community envisions for the next decade.
This series, called On Main, will explore the festival scene, engage new and longstanding business owners about what it means to ply their trade on this strip, and query young and old residents about their favorite spots and what they hope will come in the future.
To see the map in full and get tips on how to navigate it in detail, check out the project homepage.
To get a step-by-step of how the map was made, explore the methodology.
To give input on downtown and its future with reporters, complete our survey.
To learn more, stay tuned.
