Light Monday traffic passes a former Dunkin’ Donuts site on Bay Street in Winslow that will reopen this summer as an Aroma Joe’s coffee shop. Rich Abrahamson/Morning Sentinel
WINSLOW — Construction has been ongoing at the former Dunkin’ Donuts site at 9 Bay St. where an Aroma Joe’s coffee and sandwich shop is expected to open in July or August.
The shop will serve not only handcrafted coffee, espresso, lattes and its signature Italian AJ Rush energy drinks, but also breakfast sandwiches, hash browns, pretzels and other fare, according to owner Maryna Shuliakouskaya.
“The goal is to open sometime mid-summer,” Shuliakouskaya of Eliot said Friday. “We believe it’s going to be a busy location.”
Founded in 2000 by four cousins from Maine — brothers Marty and Tim McKenna and Mike and Brian Sillon — Aroma Joe’s is a company headquartered in Portland that has more than 70 locations in Maine, New Hampshire, Massachusetts, Pennsylvania and Florida, and is about to open one in Connecticut. The first shop opened in Rochester, New Hampshire.
In 2012 the company began franchising, enabling people like Shuliakouskaya to own their businesses.
Shuliakouskaya, who owns Aroma Joe’s shops in Kittery, Saco, Gorham and South Sanford, said she expects to hire 25 to 30 people at the Winslow location, 10 of whom would be full time. A lot of young people who attend school or college like to work part time, she said.
The shop will be open 4:30 a.m. to 10 p.m. but could close earlier, depending on how busy it is at night, she said. It will have a sit-down dining room as well as a drive-thru.
T Buck Construction of Turner, the contractor working on the building, is replacing the roof, plumbing and other features, and redesigning it to look like other Aroma Joe’s shops, according to Shuliakouskaya. She said she decided to open at the site after visiting it and speaking with Paul Boucher, a friend who owns the Aroma Joe’s on Kennedy Memorial Drive in Waterville.
“I got a good feel for it,” she said. “One of the things I always tell everyone, if you don’t feel it, don’t do it. We definitely have a long-term commitment. The goal when you open a business is to stay there a very long time.”
Shuliakouskaya is leasing the Bay Street property. She said she looks for personality, positivity and enthusiasm in potential employees.
The Dunkin’ Donuts it is replacing closed in 2016 and a new Dunkin’ was built about a third of a mile south, and across the street, at 50 Bay St.
That Dunkin’ is located just south of a little mall that houses Jim’s Gun Shop and other businesses.
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