Eastport General Store to close after 5 years

The Eastport General Store, which offers a variety of locally sourced goods, will close on Oct. 26, five years after opening.

Owner Amber Otto posted a message to the store's Instagram account on Thursday explaining the decision.

"Our lease has ended, and for a variety of reasons I have made the incredibly difficult decision not to renew," she wrote. "As heartbreaking as this is for me and I know for all of you, I am choosing to view this as a blessing in disguise. I have so loved creating this space and connecting with so many incredible people over these past 5 years, but the constant struggles and stressors of owning a small business are very real, and have definitely taken their toll. It’s with bittersweet acceptance that I look at this as not an ending, but the beginning of a new chapter."

The Eastport General Store, at 510 Montauk Hwy., opened in 2020 and sold home decor, clothing and apparel, candles, games and toys and pet toys, according to its website. It also had a full cafe with coffees and seasonal drinks, as well as locally made pastries. The majority of the products were woman-made, the website said.

The store was "charming," said longtime customer Barbara Lassen, 55, of Manorville. "Many of the great finds I had enjoyed at farmers markets I'd travel far to go to were now in one place. ... I've enjoyed their coffee bar," she said. "There was always something new there, but the constant was the personal hellos and neighborhood conversations with the staff and locals who shopped there."

Ree Wackett, a senior business adviser at the Stony Brook Small Business Development Center, said it's hard to sustain a business on Long Island.

"Long Island happens to be a particularly expensive place to do business anyway," Wackett said. When consumers shop at bigger stores like Amazon, they hurt small businesses, she added. "People fail to understand that when they stop shopping at their local small businesses, that hurts their local economy. When [customers] place that order from Amazon or Target or Walmart, those are the culprits."

Money "spent on Main Street stays on Main Street," Wackett said in August, citing a study that states 68 cents of each dollar spent at a small business stays in the community.