Robie’s Country Store is one of the many regular New Hampshire campaign stops where locals gather to share gossip and question candidates up close and person.
But there’s just one thing: It’s closed.
On Tuesday morning, Marco Rubio will become the latest in a string White House hopefuls to stop by.
Evidence of the Hooksett store’s place is history is visible in the framed pictures and campaign posters covering the walls.
“The thing that really put Robie’s Country Store on the political map was when Jimmy Carter walked in as a total unknown,” Bob Schroeder, president of the Robie’s Country Store Historic Preservation Corp., told CNN. “He came through the back door, walked up to the counter, introduced himself to Mr. Robie, who was hard of hearing, and Mr. Robie said, ‘Jimmy who?’ And the reporters of course took up on that.”
Schroeder arrives at Robie’s early in the morning on the days when candidates are visiting to set up a big wheel of “seriously sharp cheddar cheese” for sale. But if you wanted to buy some of that cheese any other day it could be pretty difficult.
That’s because the last time Robie’s was opened full-time was back in 2014, Schroeder told CNN. It reopened briefly earlier this year before closing in February, but a search is underway for a new operator to keep the store up and running.
That hasn’t stopped candidates from visiting. So far this year six presidential hopefuls have already visited.
New Hampshire’s first-in-the-nation primary is five months away, but with 17 Republicans running for the nomination it’s not unusual for Granite Staters to have already met a candidate or two at their local diner or general store.
It’s not hard to understand why candidates appreciate the charm of Robie’s, where political memorabilia shares wall space with collections of antique ice cream scoopers, hand mixers and rifles.
Robie’s has functioned as a town meeting space since it opened in 1822, and it was also a post office until 1975. Five generations of Robie’s ran the store for 110 years, according to Schroeder. That ended with Lloyd and Dot Robie, friends of Schroeder and his wife, who sold the store to the preservation corporation in 1997.
Little bits of history can be seen everywhere – one framed photo addressed to Mr. Robie shows Presidents Ford, Reagan, Nixon and H. W. Bush with their wives. A letter signed by First Lady Laura Bush on December 14, 1999, says her visit to Robie’s was “a highlight of my trip.”
On one wall, a poster for Mitt Romney’s 2012 campaign sits below one for his father George’s run for the White House in 1968. On either side is a poster showing Sen. John McCain while he was a solider in Vietnam, and a Barry Goldwater campaign poster from 1964.
Hooksett local Bill Ritchotte said he used to come to Robie’s with his father and listen to him and his friends talk about politics and play checkers.
“This is where, for some reason, people gathered to manage what they think they could of the world,” he told CNN.
Schroeder is proud that candidates still recognize the value in meeting voters face to face at stops like Robie’s.
“Rudy Giuliani sat in that corner, spoke with us for — oh, he spent half a day here just chatting with people. Where else in the country can you do that?” Schroeder said. “They realize that this is what New Hampshire politics is about: One-on-one relationships with individual community members.”
Schroeder said they’ve gotten visitors from all over the world at the store because of the notoriety its receives during the primary race.
As candidates flock to New Hampshire through this fall and winter, Robie’s — whether its opened or closed — will continue to provide opportunities for voters to hear from candidates hoping to make it to the White House.
According to one of those hopefuls, that’s exactly the way it should be.
“As an American I think we have the system down right,” Gov. John Kasich of Ohio said at Robie’s on a campaign stop in August. “For people to come to New Hampshire and to have you look at them, question them, test them, smell them, knock them around a little bit. You do a good screening for the United States of America.”
