Roots Natural Foods reopened on Thursday, Oct. 8, at 44 Old Princeton Road. It moved after 24 years in Leominster and now sits inside Emerson Falls, a converted factory above a dam on the Nashua River. Many people know the address as the place you pass on the way to Route 2. Few have been inside.
With Roots in place, the building's regular posted schedule runs from 8 a.m. coffee to a 9 p.m. golf simulator round, though the golf lounge is closed for maintenance through Oct. 13. That schedule fits into a 19th-century paper mill that is still, mostly, a warehouse for paper-mill machinery. To see how the day works there, start with what the building was.
A paper mill that now trades in paper mills
According to the Emerson Falls history page, the site goes back to about 1850. That's when Alvah Crocker set up a mill to cook cotton rags into pulp and run a 70-inch cylinder paper machine. A dam powered it, and rail service, which reached the area in 1845, carried its product to markets along the East Coast. The Crockers later took on Charles Burbank as a partner. By 1900, Crocker, Burbank & Company had six more mills along the river in Fitchburg.
This one was Number 1 Mill. New paper machines went in in 1903, 1922 and 1948, and by 1948 the mill covered about 253,000 square feet. It made heavyweight paperboard called Bristols, used for packaging, office products, automotive parts and art mounting. Later owners included Weyerhaeuser in the 1960s, James River in the 1970s and 1980s, and Fibermark, which closed the mill in 2003.
The next chapter is the oddest part. In 2005 the mill was bought as a warehouse for Can-Am Machinery, a dealer in used pulp and paper equipment. Can-Am had been founded in 1988 at another former Fitchburg paper mill down the river. The history page puts the business plainly: digital technology was closing mills that made paper for communication, which created a supply of used machinery, while online shopping drove demand for the paper used in shipping boxes. So a closed Fitchburg paper mill became the base of a company that buys and resells equipment from other mills.
The small end of a very large building
The tenant page says Can-Am has 250,000 square feet of warehouse space and more than 8,000 items in inventory. The complex as a whole is listed at 254,000 square feet on 15 acres.
The public side grew out of a much smaller space. After the purchase, Can-Am turned a 1920s pulp warehouse into an office overlooking the falls. It also sandblasted about 25,000 square feet in the "old end" of the mill and prepped it for future uses. The paper machines were sold or scrapped, the holes they left were filled, and dozens of concrete piers were removed. In 2015, 335 solar panels went onto the roofs over the No. 4 machine, a 100 kW system. The history page dates the idea of a "mill marketplace" to 2019, when outside tenants began moving in.
The Emerson Falls homepage lists what a visitor gets today:
- A free parking lot with 100 spaces
- A cobblestone patio overlooking the falls
- Meeting spaces
- A 3,000-square-foot on-site gym
- A newly added coffee shop
How the day breaks down
Until this month, the public tenants mostly covered two parts of the day: mornings and lunch on one side, after-school and evening activities on the other. Roots strengthens the middle. Here is how the posted hours and programs line up as of this week.
| Tenant | What it is | Posted hours or format |
|---|---|---|
| Oliver's Cafe | Breakfast, lunch, coffee and pastries | Monday–Sunday, 8 a.m.–2 p.m. |
| Roots Natural Foods | Organic café, market, grab-and-go, juice bar, catering, yoga | Café Wednesday–Saturday, 10 a.m.–2 p.m.; grab-and-go seven days |
| Mully's Indoor Golf Lounge | Four Trackman simulators, full bar, lounge | 3–9 p.m. daily until mid-October; closed Oct. 10–13 for maintenance |
| Supernatural All Stars | Cheer, tumbling, preschool classes, birthday parties, camps | Class and program schedule |
| NGE Sports Performance | Strength, speed and agility training, adult programs, youth wrestling, football clinics, boxing, camps | Class and program schedule |
Oliver's opens the building at 8 every morning, all week. It also runs a Leominster location, so with Roots arriving, both cafés under this roof have ties to the city next door. Roots' café hours overlap Oliver's late-morning and lunch hours four days a week. Roots' own site, though, says grab-and-go is available every day.
The afternoon belongs to the activity tenants. Supernatural All Stars describes its mission as letting everyone cheer, whatever their income or starting skill level. NGE works with athletes of all ages, sports and levels. Mully's opens at 3 p.m. Its four bays use Trackman 4 technology, with more than 65 courses to choose from, from par-3 layouts to full 18-hole rounds.
Mully's timing deserves a closer look this week. Its homepage says it is "Open for the Season," lists 3 to 9 p.m. daily "until Mid-October," and shows a maintenance closure from October 10 through 13. Today is the 12th, so the simulators are dark for the next two days. Hours after mid-October aren't posted yet, so call or check the booking page before planning an evening round.
What Roots adds, in the owners' words
Roots isn't new to the Twin Cities. Marieke Cormier's mother, Ellen Jonkers, opened it in 2002, and Cormier, who spent her early childhood in West Fitchburg, now runs it with co-owner and executive chef Kevin Williams. In an interview with the Sentinel & Enterprise, Cormier explained the move by pointing to the building's mix of tenants:
"We have the river and waterfall outside the windows and there are other businesses and activities in the building that brings families and people through the doors. It creates an opportunity for Roots to be more than just a place to grab lunch or buy groceries."
The physical changes match that goal. The Sentinel & Enterprise reported that the new space is about the same size as the Leominster store. The market section is a little smaller and the café is much bigger. The menu still has organic food, smoothies and juices, espresso drinks, soups, salads and sandwiches. The new layout adds room for more catering and a larger event space for special events and holiday parties. Cormier also mentioned "an epic patio."
Cormier also told the paper the site is "incredibly accessible from Routes 2 and 31 and just minutes from where we were." For Fitchburg residents, an organic market they used to drive to Leominster for is now on this side of the city line.
What isn't settled yet
Roots opened while still finishing some details, and Cormier said as much: "Everything isn't perfect — we are a work in progress — but it's time to open." A few things are still open questions as of today:
- Weekend brunch and evenings at Roots. Cormier told the Sentinel & Enterprise that Sunday brunch and late-night menus are "in the works," with updates promised. For now the posted café hours stop at 2 p.m. Saturday, and the site lists kitchen hours as coming soon.
- Mully's late-fall schedule. The posted 3-to-9 hours only run through mid-October.
- Yoga at Roots. Roots lists yoga among its offerings at the new address. No class schedule was posted when we checked.
- Getting down to the river. Emerson Falls advertises its patio overlooking the falls, but nothing we found shows a public path along the riverbank from the complex. If you want a riverside walk after lunch, the city's Gateway Park at 19 Sheldon Street has a walking track and paths along the North Nashua River.
The waterfall doesn't have an official name in any source we found. The mill's own history calls it "the falls that originally powered the mill," and the state lists this stretch as the North Nashua River.
That leaves a fairly clear routine for a cold-weather Saturday. Get coffee at Oliver's when it opens at 8. Drop the kids at a Supernatural All Stars or NGE program. Have lunch in Roots' café before it closes at 2. Then check whether Mully's has posted its late-fall hours. All of it happens in the old end of a mill that still keeps more than 8,000 pieces of paper-industry equipment in inventory under the same roof.
Converted mills like Emerson Falls are a big part of what makes the Fitchburg side of Route 2 its own place, and each reuse changes what the surrounding streets are like to live on. If you own near Old Princeton Road or elsewhere in Fitchburg and want to know what that's worth today, Doug Tammelin can walk you through it with local comps and a clear process. Get your instant home valuation.
