1. Pine Hollow Par 3
City: Sanford, ME
Category: Golf
Telephone: (207) 324-5271
Address: 1486 Main St.
Description: A good club for up-and-comers, Pine Hollow is a short, par 3 course, with the longest of its 18 holes a distant 80 yards. This is a great place to come and practice and hone your game. You’ll also find a practice green, rental options, and instruction offered. Open from April through September.
2. Sanford Country Club
City: Sanford, ME
Category: Golf
Telephone: (207) 324-5462
Address: Route 4
Description: Built in 1924, Sanford County Club sits on Bauneg Beg Pond and began its life as the Bauneg Beg Pond Country Club. The nine original holes were laid out by Maine course architect Alex Chisholm, and nine new holes were added in 1997 by Marvin Armstrong, when the unwieldy name was changed. The result is a popular, par 72, 18-hole championship course with four sets of tees. The facilities include a driving range, tee mats, a practice bunker, rentals, instruction, and the all-important snack bar and lounge. The course is open from April through October. Tee times are necessary and can be made a couple of days ahead of time. Eighteen holes are $41, $48 on weekends.
3. Shain’S Of Maine
City: Sanford, ME
Category: Restaurants
Telephone: (207) 324-1449 or (800) 324-05
Address: 1491 Main St.
Description: Besides being one of the best and brightest wholesalers of ice cream in Maine, Shain’s has supplied the Portland Sea Dogs baseball team with their delicious “dog biscuits.” And Shain’s has a retail operation in Sanford where you can tour the factory and sample the more than 100 flavors the company turns out. Delightful.
4. Marden’S
City: Sanford, ME
Category: Shopping
Telephone: (207) 324-1239
Address: 1247 Main St.
Description: Mickey Marden was definitely on to something when he opened his first store in Fairfield in the 1960s. He bought job lots, stuff from bankruptcy courts, flood and fire sales, factory overruns—anything that needed to go soon and cheap—and built the largest surplus and salvage empire in Maine. Now the store that bears his name, Marden’s, has a dozen stores and more than 850 employees. And more than that, Marden’s has become like a religion to bargain-conscious Mainers. Many people stop by almost daily to see what has arrived on the Marden’s trucks, and they never know what they might find. One day it may be the contents of a Radio Shack store, the next Armani suits, the next a software bonanza. There are also stores on the coast in Sanford, Biddeford, Portland, Ellsworth, and Calais, as well as a whole fleet inland, and they all stock everything from books to electronics to clothes to furniture in their many departments. Every week brings something new, so it’s always an adventure.
5. Smitty’S Cinema
City: Sanford, ME
Category: Shopping
Telephone: (207) 490-6677 or the hotline
Address: 1364 Main St.
Description: Would you like some “Love Me Tenders” with your movie? Perhaps a “Chicken Little Sandwich?” Those are the sorts of offerings at Smitty’s, where you can watch first-run films and enjoy a full meno of pub-type foods, micro beers, wines, even milkshakes while tucked into oversized seats. There’s another theater in Biddeford, too.