Requiem for a Store Where Everyone Knows Your Name: A Day’s Work

The groceries bagged, Dale Danahy offers a warm hug on this cold New England Saturday to a woman who has shopped Danahy’s store for 30 years. Hugs happen again in frozen food. Over by the bakery and in the meat section, Danahy is saying goodbye to a life inspired by a father who mixed his hard work with fun.

At 59, she is president of Colella’s Supermarket in Hopkinton, Massachusetts, a place the world knows as the start of the Boston Marathon. Locals know it better as the home of the full-service grocery and liquor store at the heart of Main Street that is closing down after 70 years.