By Victor Tine
Staff writer
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PLUM ISLAND — For Kurt Littlefield, something had to give.
For the Derry, N.H., resident and executive of a medical care company in Lexington, trying to also operate a business on Plum Island was, well, plum crazy.
So Littlefield put Plum Crazy, his restaurant/convenience store/pizzeria/ice cream stand at 134 Northern Blvd., up for sale on Friday.
"The biggest problem for us was just time," Littlefield said yesterday. "We thought it was a hobby at first, but it's more than a hobby."
Littlefield bought the property June 30, 2008, from Julian Geiger, CEO of the Aeropostale clothing line, whose late wife, Jeanne Geiger, had purchased it from Jane McNeal in June 2004. McNeal had operated PJ's Variety at the same Newbury location since May 1974.
Jeanne Geiger had planned to open either a restaurant or a catering service on the property, but she died in February 2005 before she could get started. Julian Geiger put the property up for sale in October 2007.
The coffee shop-convenience store had been closed since Jeanne Geiger took ownership before Littlefield bought it for $410,000 and completely renovated the 64-year-old building.
Littlefield's run as an island food service entrepreneur lasted only one full season. Plum Crazy opened in the spring of 2009 and closed for the winter late in the year.
"I'd like to hand it over to someone who has the time and passion for it," Littlefield said.
Littlefield said traveling from Derry to the island — and back — on a regular basis proved to be more time-consuming than he anticipated.
"We were closing at 7, and people complained that was too early, but it took us an hour to close up and then another hour to drive home," he said.
With a full-time job as a vice president at Fresenius Medical Care, a German-owned provider of dialysis services and products, and with four children, "and two cats," he didn't have the time to properly supervise the Plum Crazy operation, he said.
Plum Crazy also had what Littlefield called "parking challenges." There are only about a dozen off-street spaces with the building, and customers sometimes irritated neighbors by parking on the street and blocking access to residents' homes.
As late as Tuesday evening, selectmen had an item labeled "Parking/Plum Crazy" on their agenda, although discussion was brief as word got around that the store would not be opening immediately.
Robert Bentley, the ReMax on the River real estate broker who is handling the sale, said he has scheduled showings of the property beginning next week.
The asking price is $999,999, a figure Bentley said reflects both Littlefield's significant improvements to the property and his promotion of the Plum Crazy brand and logo.
The listing on the ReMax website said the property includes a fully equipped 49-seat restaurant, including a pizza oven, a walk up ice-cream service, a full convenience store setup, a point-of-sale inventory system and a security system with video monitoring.
