Photo / Renee Cordes
Dunkin' has 161 locations in Maine, including this one in South Portland.
Updated: August 3, 2020
Retail roundup: Sea Bags opens in Kennebunkport, Dunkin' plans closures
Courtesy / Sea Bags
Sea Bags opened its eighth retail store in Maine, and 34th in the United States, over the weekend in downtown Kennebunkport. Located at 15 Ocean Ave., it will be open every day throughout the summer from 10 a.m. to 8 p.m.
Sea Bags, the Portland-based designer, maker and retailer of bags, totes and accessories made from recycled sail cloth, laid a new anchor in Kennebunkport this weekend with its eighth store in Maine and 34th in the United States.
"We're excited to have found a great spot in Kennebunkport," Sea Bags CEO Don Oakes said of the new downtown location at 15 Ocean Ave., which opened Saturday.
"The building is a classic old building that has been a fixture in town for many years," he told Mainebiz. "All we had to do was add a fresh coat of paint, refinish the beautiful maple floors and add some lighting."
Oakes also said that Sea Bags managed the project with a few local contractors who did the work and that the landlord did the exterior painting and.
"We were very pleased with the sales results from our first weekend, and we are off to a great start," he added.
Oakes told Mainebiz in early July that online sales have been strong in recent months, though the increases don't come close to making up for lost sales when physical stores were closed. He also said at that time that it's too early to predict anything for the end of the year or the holiday shopping season.
The move follows recent openings in California, Michigan, South Carolina and Massachusetts in an expansion that had been delayed by the pandemic.
Sea Bags, which employs close to 175 people, launched a program in 2017 that allows people to donate old or unused sails in return for a Sea Bags product. The company has reclaimed more than 700 tons of sail cloth material since launching that effort in 2017 and took in 8,800 sails in 2019 alone.
Dunkin' closure update
Dunkin' Brands Group Inc. (Nasdaq: DNKN) said last week it expects to permanently close about 800 Dunkin' locations in the United States this year, including 450 previously announced self-service kiosks in Speedway convenience stores.
Out of about 9,600 total Dunkin' stores in the United States, 161 are in Maine.
Dunkin Brands, the Canton, Mass.-based owner of both Dunkin and Baskin-Robbins, said the planned closures are part of a "real estate portfolio rationalization" and is targeting low-volume stores in non-traditional locations such as rail stations where there would be very few employees.
At the same time, the company is adding some stores and said that it's in "hiring mode," with franchisees looking to bring on 25,000 new employees over the next few months.
Asked what the closure plan means for Maine, Dunkin' Brands spokeswoman Karen Raskopf declined to give specifics. But she noted that if 450 Speedway locations and 350 other low-volume locations were to close as per the latest plan, they would represent only around 2% of system-wide sales.
"We are still working with our franchisees to assess these other possibly 350 locations, and so don't have any addresses to share," she told Mainebiz on Friday.
"More importantly," she added, "for many of these franchisees, closing these restaurants will enable them to invest in remodels, new restaurants and potentially relocate to some higher-traffic areas, or to areas where they can ad a drive-thru. So this will ultimately be a good thing for our guests as well as our franchisees."
The company's latest plan was released the same day as it posted second-quarter results.
Adjusted earnings of 49 cents a share were 43% lower than a year ago but above the 47 cents a share Zacks Investment Research consensus forecast.
Second-quarter revenue was down 20% year-on-year at $287.4 million, which the retailer attributed in part to temporary and permanent restaurant closures during the pandemic.
As of July 25, about 96% of Dunkin' locations and 98% of Baskin-Robbins locations in the United States were open, the company said last week. It also reinstated its regular quarterly cash dividend.
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