1. Belfast Co-Op Store
City: Belfast, ME
Category: Shopping
Telephone: (207) 338-2532
Address: 123 High St.
Description: Not every small Maine town can support a grocery-store-size co-op filled with organic produce, natural meats, enviromental magazines, green health and beauty products, organic snacks and chips, and on and on, but Belfast isn’t every Maine town. The Co-op is a meeting place—it has a nice little cafe—and an important grocery to many who live in Waldo County. It’s been at it for three decades now. You may fall in love with a product, though, only to have it never available again. That happens here.
2. Brambles
City: Belfast, ME
Category: Shopping
Telephone: (207) 338-3448
Address: Main St.
Description: You don’t have to have a garden to appreciate this Main Street favorite. While the store specializes in upscale garden goods—tools, ornaments, statuary, planters, herb markers, and on and on—it also carries fanciful housewares and gifts, note cards, soap, and ribbon. It’s a can’t-fail place to buy Mother’s Day presents or housewarming items for your friend with the new cottage.
City: Belfast, ME
Category: Shopping
Address: Route 1
4. Coyote Moon
City: Belfast, ME
Category: Shopping
Telephone: (207) 338-5659
Address: 54 Main St.
Description: Coyote Moon is something of a reflection of Waldo County. It has all the funkiness and whimsy you might expect of a boutique catering to ex-hippies and back-to-the-landers and then some, with dresses from India, crazy cool mobiles hanging from the ceiling, neat turquoise jewelry, and gifts and accessories. And it has somehow managed to thrive for more than a decade while other stores on Main Street boarded up or changed hands long ago.
5. The Green Store
City: Belfast, ME
Category: Shopping
Telephone: (207) 338-4045
Address: 71 Main St.
Description: This place bills itself as the general store for the 21st century, and we can only hope that people will be as forward-thinking as the Green Store. From health and beauty products to rugs to clothing to solar technology, the store has environmentally sustainable goods galore. Check out the horse tire swing, the Audubon birdcalls, the natural cotton baby slings, and the rack of environmental magazines.
6. Belfast Maskers Railroad Theater
City: Belfast, ME
Category: Shopping
Telephone: (207) 338-9668
Address: Front St.
Description: A top-notch community theater, the Maskers have attracted some big-name stars to the stage in Belfast. Mostly, though, it’s the work of dedicated Waldo County residents that lights up the stage at the Railroad Theater: classics and premieres, locally directed. Shows are on Saturdays. Tickets are $10 to $15. Call ahead for showtimes.
7. National Theatre Workshop Of The Handicapped
City: Belfast, ME
Category: Shopping
Telephone: (207) 338-6894
Address: 96 Church St.
Description: Belfast residents were excited when this school set up in town several years ago, and it produces several shows a year now. Look for local listings.
8. Colonial Theatre
City: Belfast, ME
Category: Shopping
Telephone: (207) 338-1930
Address: High St.
Description: That the Colonial is painted aquamarine and pink and has an elephant on the roof should tell you something about the three-screen cinema. It has a lot of spunk and is a ton of fun. A celebration of moviegoing, the landmark theater has art deco detailing all over the place, a dizzying carpet of electric colors, and even ticket takers in old-fashioned costumes when big movies open. Run by former Belfast mayor Michael Hurley and his wife, Therese Bagnardi, it somehow manages to snag blockbuster movies on their opening weekend, something most independent theaters can’t seem to do, and screens arty pictures in the winter. Belfast filmgoers have enjoyed going to the movies here for generations, and it just keeps getting better.