Saturdays have been Mike Preston’s favorite time of week at The Alna Store. Everyone’s in less of a rush; it’s like sitting in the living room, he said Saturday as he made a customer a steak bomb.

The research associate at Bigelow Laboratories said the day felt a little strange. It was his and wife Amy Preston’s last Saturday owning the store they put on the market in 2015. The sale was set to close Tuesday, Feb. 28, Amy Preston said.

As they worked and accepted well-wishes and one visitor’s plate of candy-topped cookies, the couple shared what they’ll miss and what they won’t. Both said they were feeling very good about selling to another local couple, Ken and Jane Solorzano.

“That was key,” Mike Preston said. The Solorzanos’ children and a niece have worked at the store, so that also made it a good fit, Amy Preston said.

The Prestons bought the store at 2 Dock Road in 2004. They’ll miss working with the staff, or “the girls,” as Amy Preston called them. They threw the couple a surprise party Friday night, with a sheet cake bearing a photo of the store. As night fell, the parking lot was filling up. Amy Preston said she was overwhelmed at the gesture and the turnout. “It was great.”

She will not miss getting up at the crack of dawn to make breakfast at the store. The couple’s plans are the same as when the sale sign went up. They’ll still live at their Windy Ledge Farm, where she’ll tend her 180-acre orchard and 18 acres of blueberry fields. He’ll keep working at Bigelow.

“It’s sad to see them go,” Suki Flanagan of Alna said. “It’s been wonderful.” She and husband Gerry Flanagan were eating at the counter early Saturday afternoon. “It’s been an important piece of the community,” Gerry Flanagan said about the town’s only general store and its role as a community gathering spot. “And I hope it continues.”

It will, Jane Solorzano said. The couple, once caretakers of Treasure Island in East Boothbay, will do a bit of refurbishing using local wood and local hands; they hope to reopen March 6 under the new name — The Alna General Store, she said in a phone interview Sunday evening.

Ken Solorzano retired last fall as an Army sergeant first class. A lot of community members encouraged them to think about getting the store, Jane Solorzano said. Her and Ken’s strong family ethic, the store’s community aspect, and an interest in bringing together the talents so many people in Alna have were important factors in the decision, she said.