The new home for Greenlands Outdoor Power Equipment is quite familiar to its president Joshua Stern, but not for any reasons related to lawnmowers or chainsaws.
The Concord firm, which has been in the city for 75 years, recently moved up Manchester Street into the former home of Cityside Grill, which shut in 2019 after almost two decades as a restaurant under that name following decades under other names.
“My wife and I have eaten here for years,” said Stern of his wife, Lisa. “She is from Concord; she was here when it was Scuffy’s.”
Stern said he bought the site, not far from their previous rented home, because it was bigger and has more parking and more visibility.
“It was actually a pretty good fit for what we need. We did some minor alterations, basically aesthetics,” he said. “It was an opportunity to get out of that building and get into something that Greenlands would own.”
The company moved late last year and is still installing the final touches. The purchase price was $647,533, according to public documents.
The move comes as Greenlands, like all companies, is dealing with changes due to the pandemic. Business crashed when the stay-at-home orders came down but perked up in the summer, especially as people did more yard work on their lawns and gardens, Stern said.
“As people figured out what was going on, then it was just very busy after that. Everybody wanted chainsaws and brush cutters,” Stern said.
Also like many companies, it has wrestled with getting materials due to supply-chain disruptions.
“We had issues getting parts from what COVID due to production. They’re warning us for next year that we will have issues,” he said. “It really showed where the weak points are. It’s a little scary when you think about it, how that can shut everything down.”
(David Brooks can be reached at 369-3313 or dbrooks@cmonitor.com or on Twitter @GraniteGeek.)
