Rick Breau stands Wednesday in front of Mountain Valley Variety at 438 Hancock St. in Rumford, the business he has owned for nearly 20 years. He recently retired and sold it to Tejas Patel. Bruce Farrin/Rumford Falls Times
RUMFORD — The store at the busiest corner in town, Mountain Valley Variety, has changed ownership.
Rick Breau, who has owned the 438 Hancock St. business for nearly 20 years, has decided to retire, selling to Tejas Patel. Tejas’ brother, Sam Patel, is the new manager.
Breau said Wednesday that the new owner took over Saturday. Patel wants to keep everything the same, keeping all of the employees. “The only thing they’re going to be missing is me, and my daughter, Jaime, who is not staying,” Breau said.
He said he was approached last summer about selling the business. “I said no probably 12 times, but they kept coming back.”
But when he turned 70 in November, “that’s when it really started to hit me,” Breau said.
“I love what I do,” he said. “I have fun with what I’m doing. We grew this business to be probably the largest independently owned convenience store in the state of Maine. It’s my life, my livelihood.”
The new owner has a lot of money to invest, he said. “They took good care of me.”
Over the past few years, Breau said, he did a lot of stopping in and seeing how things were going. “I don’t do a lot of the cooking, but I did a lot of the cooking for the specials, which I thought up.”
Besides his employees, Breau said he will also miss his vendors.
“I’ve been doing business with the same five guys and developed a rapport,” he said. “They knew what I wanted, and I appreciated their service, because it works both ways. I treated them good, but they treated me good.”
Another thing he’ll miss is doing the local radio commercials. “I loved doing those radio ads. I did my last one this week. So that’s over, too.”
Breau’s business career began with a small dairy bar in Bethel in 1988. From there, he moved on to Breau’s Two in Bryant Pond, then to Rick’s Market in Wilton before finishing with Mountain Valley Variety.
He said he doesn’t have any plans going forward. “I don’t know nothing — how to play golf, snowmobile, fish, tennis, etc. This is all I’ve ever done.”
Breau noted, “I’ve been working since I was 10 years old. My father owned (Breau’s Dairy) right here in town. As soon as you could walk, you’re on the milk truck.”
Breau said it will be hard for him to retire.
“We’ve all gotta move on,” he said.
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