Nature's Storehouse opens, 1972

Nature’s opened in 1972, run by the Foote family. Then came Miriam Preis, then Georgie Mallett. There’s a handwritten note in the store that lists them all, taped up, coffee-stained, still readable. On Georgie's day the deli made one kind of muffin and one soup most days. The next owners never forgot that.

The Crabtree years, 2002–2023

Rainbow Crabtree worked at Nature's for three years before she and her husband Joshua bought the store from Georgie Mallett in 2002. They’d run it for the next 21 years, and most of what you see in the store today is their work.

That one muffin and one soup became a cooler full of deli food and two or three soups a day. They put in the produce cooler, and the local vegetable selection grew with it. They started carrying dairy, mostly cheeses from makers around here.

When Rainbow talked about why the store mattered, she didn’t overthink it: in a rural area, good food can be hard to get. Nature’s was meant to be that access, and a warm place where you feel at home.

New owners, 2023

In August 2023, Yen and Clark Maine of Parishville bought Nature's Storehouse from the Crabtrees, becoming its fifth owners.

Clark is a North Country kid. He grew up in Parishville,went to St. Lawrence University and Clarkson. He worked as an engineer in solar and battery storage. Yen grew up in Taiwan, holds a business degree and an MBA, and was an executive at Citibank when the two met. After four years abroad, they came home in 2022 with their young son to take over the Maine family business, Adirondack Fragrance & Flavor Farm in Parishville, the company Clark's mother, Sandy Maine, built after founding Sunfeather Natural Soap in 1979. A year later they bought Nature's too.

They said at the time they weren't there to change what worked: same team, same suppliers, same store, with investment where it was needed.

Nature's Café opens, 2026

The biggest change is the one you can see from the street.

In 2025 the store got a $497,000 NY Forward grant to expand into the old building next door at 19 Main Street, roughly double the space and room for a real café. Ground broke on April 2, 2026. Four months later, on July 27, Nature's Café opened its doors: exposed brick, the building's original sign restored and hung back up,and a photo album from Birdsfoot Farm on the wall for anyone who wants to see where the vegetables come from.

The menu is breakfast, smoothie bowls, grain and poke bowls, and panini, right next to the vegetarian deli you already knew. And in 2026, Restaurant Guru named Nature's Storehouse the Best Vegan Restaurant in Canton. A grocery store with a restaurant award.

At the groundbreaking, Yen said what the North Country had given her was neighbors who know your name and the land. It's hard to describe this store better than that.

What hasn't changed since 1972

• Still independent. Never part of a chain, never will be.
• Still Local. Martin’s Farmstand, Kent Family Growers, Birdsfoot Farm, Canton Apples, 8 O'Clock Ranch and more on the Supplier page .
• Still for everyone. SNAP/EBT and Double Up Food Bucks accepted. Seniors get 10% off on Wednesdays, military get 10% off every day. Details on the Food Assistance page.
• Still on Main Street. Number 21, two blocks from the post office, the library and the park.

More than fifty years in, and the story is still going. Come see the new room.

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