Neighborhood deliveries are free. Most customers are greeted by name.

The cash register is more than 60 years old. And in the winter, a coal stove provides heat.

Welcome to Maenner's Market, a tiny grocery store in Govans in North Baltimore, where patrons say there's just one problem: The last day for business is Friday.

"I'm very sad it's closing," Sister George Marie said recently as she stopped in to pick up a cucumber and a few other items. "He renders a service that nobody else renders. It's one of the few mom-and-pop stores left in Baltimore."

Sister Marie isn't the only one upset over the impending closing. Some longtime patrons have cried, said owner Tom Resch. He expects more tears and fanfare Friday, the last day for a store that has been in Govans for more than 50 years.

However, C. Paul Maenner, 85, might not be among those stopping by one last time. The man who gave the business its name ran the store for 37 years.

"I don't think I'm going to be there," Maenner said. "It's too painful."

After a few seconds, he added: "I don't know yet. I'm still debating."

Maenner, who sold the store in the 5700 block of York Road to Resch in 1993, said he's not sure he can bear going.

"It's a big loss for the community," Maenner said. "I would like it to remain a store because there's good potential there. I had people from all over the city [who] used to come there to buy stuff."

Maenner began renting the store for $30 a month in 1946 after returning from the Army after World War II. At that time, he said, the business was owned by Herbert Stauffer and was a feed store. A streetcar used to stop in front of the store.

"A lot of people, when they got off the streetcar, they'd come off the Govans car to transfer to the Towson car right there in front of my store," Maenner said. "There were times when I couldn't even wait on customers because it was so crowded with streetcar riders."

In 1951, Maenner said he bought the store and continued selling feed. After becoming the owner, Maenner decided he could do more business if he converted the store into a market.

"I was there [as owner] only a couple months when I started to fill the business up," Maenner said. "I was putting some produce and stuff in there. Business started booming. As the food business began to increase, the feed business began to wane. I mean, people couldn't raise chickens in their back yards anymore because their neighbors didn't like it. And farmers were being bought out by developers."

Over the years, Maenner employed dozens of neighborhood boys. He remembers the day he met Resch.

"June 6, 1970, that was his first payday," Maenner said, as his eyes wandered up and down one of several ledgers he has at home. "That was a Saturday. Tom was a good worker, but he was a little bull-headed at first."

For Resch, landing the job was as unexpected as his eventual 32-year tenure there.

"I was sitting home watching The Flintstones one day, and my dad, who worked at Greenspring Dairy, came home from work and said, 'I've got you a job,' " Resch recalled. "I said OK. I was 12 years old. You know, back then kids couldn't wait to work. But I said, well. let's go tomorrow, because I was watching The Flintstones, and my dad said 'No, let's go now.' He brought me over and introduced me to Mr. Maenner, and I started working."

Now, more than three decades later, Resch said that he's selling the business because he's tired of working 70-hour weeks. He is closing the doors of the store - a throwback to an era when patrons could get credit extended - and plans to work for a local supermarket chain, Eddie's. He is scheduled to report to work July 8.

"I've been thinking about this for a couple of years, but I got a call about three weeks ago from Steve Kuehn, the general manager of Eddie's," Resch said. "I filled out an application, something I've never done in my life."

Resch has mixed feelings about leaving the store, housed in a wooden building that's painted white with green shutters and a green front door. The store is surrounded by businesses, including Verizon and a dry cleaners, and is two blocks away from the historic Senator Theatre.

Like Maenner, Resch has made numerous friends at the quaint grocery. People from as far away as Wisconsin call to request one of the fruit baskets Maenner's is known for.

"People are asking me not to go, but my mind's made up," Resch said, standing near two balloons tied to his bread stand. A patron dropped them off last week. One has animals on it and reads, "We'll Miss You."

"There are a couple of people interested in buying it," Resch said. "But regardless of what happens, the 28th is the last day. I would like to see somebody keep it the way it is, but I don't know if anybody would want to keep the old fashioned-ness of it, you know, the coal stove, the old-timey register."

That the store isn't overly modern adds to its charm.

When the weather is pleasant and the stove isn't necessary, Resch takes it out of the store and uses an old Coca-Cola sign to cover up the flue. The store has a calendar from 1956 - the year Resch was born - hidden inside a closet where miscellaneous items are kept.

Produce can always be found displayed outside, but there is plenty of it inside, too, arranged on shelves Maenner built more than 40 years ago.

The interior, with its checkered tile floor, is decidedly cozy. Resch estimates that it is 1,200 square feet, but the area patrons browse for canned goods, produce, snacks, milk, bread and sodas is considerably smaller. With assistant Keith McClung standing at the register and a mere half-dozen customers inside, the store is crowded.

Yet none of that seems to matter to customers. Gillis Brown, 35, frequents the store several times daily. He owns a dry cleaners across the street in the 5700 block of York Road.

"It's going to be a big loss to the community," Brown said. "It has been here forever, so obviously I hate to see it go. Tom has been an excellent neighbor, so on a personal level I'm going to miss him. It's definitely not going to be festive at all on June 28th. Most of the people who work in the community and know Tom personally are going to be sad."