After 18 years in business on Main Street in Westbrook, Aubuchon Hardware closed without warning on Wednesday.

Manager Don Heald said the store had opened for business as usual in the morning. Company representatives came in at about 9 a.m., and told him they were closing the store. By 11:30 a.m., the exterior of the building had been stripped of all of its signs. Heald said there were no customers in the store when it was closed.

Heald said the closing came as a surprise to the employees. “Nobody had much of a warning,” he said.

The windows of the store were covered with brown paper, with a note on the door announcing the closing and encouraging customers to visit Aubuchon locations in Windham and Portland.

Orange letters that used to spell out the store’s name were stacked at the front of the store. The interior showed no signs that the store was going out of business, with fully stocked shelves and Christmas decorations hanging over the cash register.

Danny Aubuchon, the company’s vice president of human resources, said it was a simple lack of business that forced the closing. The store that opened in Westbrook in May 1988.

“It’s a tough business atmosphere out there,” Aubuchon said.

Heald, who had been the manager of the Westbrook store since September, echoed that assessment. “The business just hasn’t been as good as expectations here,” he said. “It was just a low-volume store. We did the best we could.”

Aubuchon said while the decision came as a surprise to the employees, the company had been considering closing the store since earlier this year. He added it is always a difficult decision. “We don’t like to close stores,” he said.

Aubuchon Hardware, which operates more than 130 stores in Maine, Massachusetts, New Hampshire, Connecticut and upstate New York, faced stiff competition in Westbrook from big-box hardware chains Home Depot and Lowe’s, which are nearby.

Heald said the two big-box stores were at least partially to blame for the Westbrook Aubuchon’s demise.

“I think that’s had a big effect on this store,” he said.

While Aubuchon agreed that places like Home Depot, which carry the same inventory on a larger scale than Aubuchon, are harmful to the smaller stores, he said the Westbrook’s store’s problems predated the arrival of the big chains.

“We’ve been struggling with sales even before Home Depot went there,” he said.

As for the Westbrook inventory, Aubuchon said it would be transferred to the company’s new Bangor store, which will be opening soon.

Heald said the company would try and find jobs for at least some of the store’s six part- and full-time employees.

“We are going to do what we can for them,” he said.

Aubuchon Hardware has been family owned since 1908, and is based in Westminster, Mass.

A fixture on Westbrook’s Main Street for over 18 years, Aubuchon Hardware closed suddenly on Dec. 27.A sign on the door notifies customers that Westbrook’s Aubuchon Hardware closed on Dec. 27.The letters that spelled out Aubuchon Hardware were quickly pulled off the side of the building after the store closed for good on Dec. 27.The interior of Westbrook’s Aubuchon Hardware was fully stocked when the company made the decision to suddenly close the store on Dec. 27.