Around Concord: The Balshaws bring a rustic revival to the Canterbury Country Store
Published: 07-01-2025 9:02 AM |
David Balshaw’s intention as he approached retirement was to “wind down and be done.”
He had enjoyed a long career as a mortgage banker. During the pandemic, he grew an affinity for a new hobby: painting textured still lifes with whichever hard-edge tools and spatulas he could scrounge in his tool shed. He had never allowed himself to be creative until the age of 55, aside from one Christmas, when he remembers splatter-painting sweatsuits for relatives. As a retiree, he planned to savor his newly discovered “art self.”
His plan shifted, however, when Balshaw and his wife, Jane, bought thousand-dollar shares in the Canterbury Community Market LLC, a limited liability corporation formed to preserve the Canterbury Country Store. Today, they are the newest parents — the 23rd set, to be exact — of a centuries-old business dating to 1767.
“When we said ‘we want to help our community,’ we kept coming back to the question of ‘well, what are we good at?’ And this was it,” Balshaw said, sitting in the Feed Loft, the store’s indoor sitting area and gallery, where a rotating display of local artwork, including his and Jane’s, adorns the walls.
In April, when the theme was ‘Funny Bones,’ his own chicken paintings — scenes of speckled yellow birds dancing, doing stand-up comedy and lying awake at night ruminating, each with its own flaming red comb — hung in a corner of the loft. In May, his rugged flower vases are mounted beside Jane’s “babies:” three-dimensional flowers made from polymer clay and canvas that’s been cut up and stitched back together.
In the store, their shelves and refrigerators are stocked with Jane’s pot pies, scones and fresh breads. Her scratch-made almond praline syrup sits in the coffee station beside the register. Behind the counter, her own skin care products, inspired by a lifetime of experience in makeup artistry and esthetics and made from holistic ingredients, are available for purchase.
Since the Balshaws took over the business in 2023, their steady hands have reinvented the humble country store into a gathering space for the town’s close-knit population of fewer than 2,500.
Community members packed into the newly renovated store on opening day. Some searched for familiar staples — white bread, ketchup, mustard and canned tuna fish. Others celebrated the Balshaws’ promise of introducing an inventory comprised of 75% new items and 25% old. Others still, the “hesitant old timers,” as characterized by David, would visit the post office adjoining the store, peer through the store windows and, with time, make their way inside.
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One customer recently told Balshaw as he worked behind the register, “I can’t believe I’m grocery shopping here!”
The Balshaws, who moved to Canterbury from California in 2003, see evidence of the success of their experiment in community-building everywhere. The store was built on a generator and, whenever the power grid goes down — not an uncommon occurrence in some of the state’s more rural areas — neighbors flock to the store to camp out with their computers.
Their regulars know the Balshaws aren’t afraid of cheese. In fact, their most popular soup is equal parts broccoli and cheddar. They also know that Thursdays bring the restocking of prepared meals and Friday evenings come with fresh pizzas.
Even children as small as four-year-old Sylvie from Canterbury and seven-year-old Clara from Northfield, whose flower paintings hang in the store’s new art show dubbed “A Garden Gathering,” know that Jane is a trusted community curator. She accepts art submissions from anyone in New Hampshire, regardless of skill level and age.
“We have artists who can’t accept checks, we have to write them out to their parents,” Jane recalled, amused.
When the Balshaws were preparing to take the helm of the store, they visited similar general stores that had learned to survive in the face of financial headwinds and competition with franchise stores. They searched for the vital signs of flourishing, sustainable businesses and sought to learn from their owners.
Recently, the operators of a small community store in Harrisville came to visit them and to pick their brains about the success of the Canterbury Country Store, an enduring establishment with a storied history and modern appeal.
“Food helps people gather, but it starts with community,” David remembered telling them. “You could have all of this on the shelves delivered online if you wanted.”
Just as communities, their needs and their tastes change, so must their small country stores, both Balshaws agreed.
“The stores need to be preserved, but they also need to evolve to stay alive,” he said. u