DENNIS PORT — The 2,500-square-foot building that Lisa Alexander leased for 22 years sits empty this summer.
Pizazz, on Long Pond Drive in Yarmouth, used to be filled with beach umbrellas and floats, t-shirts and towels, sunscreen and kids’ toys − almost everything a vacationing family could need.
“I was in tears,” she said in a July 23 interview. “I wondered what I had done wrong.”
Alexander has two Pizazz stores and a long history on the Cape. A Dennis Port store has been in the family for 40 years. She’s rented the Yarmouth location for 22 years. Both stores are seasonal businesses, running from May to Labor Day. She had already ordered her summer merchandise when she was told her lease wasn’t going to be renewed for the following year.
But now the building sits deserted. Atlantic Realty has posted a ‘for lease’ sign in the window. And Alexander wonders why the company chose not to renew a lease she’s had for decades. She said she gave notice in August 2023 to renew the lease for January to December 2024. Atlantis sent her a text in October that her lease was not going to be renewed.
“I asked what it would take money-wise to stay,” she said July 25. “I asked, “Can I stay till Oct. 2024?’ Then I could tell my customers and sell down my merchandise. The only thing they offered was month-to-month.”
She didn’t want to take that risk, so she scrambled to remove her inventory from Yarmouth and find a place to put all the new merchandise coming in May 2024.
The old Pizazz building sits within the boundaries of Stop & Shop‘s parcel of land off Long Pond Drive. The grocery store shares space with a gym and other small businesses. Atlantis Realty was formed by Stop and Shop for the purpose of developing and holding interest in real property.
Stop & Shop disputes lease claim
Stephanie Cunha, external communications manager for Stop & Shop, disputes Alexander’s story about the lease. She wrote in an emailed statement, “Stop & Shop is the owner of the plaza at 55 Long Pond Drive in South Yarmouth, however any claims that we terminated this particular tenant’s lease are not true.”
“The tenant did not communicate her desire to renew for the second year by the required deadline of July 2023, as outlined in the original agreement,” Cunha said. “Our team tried to accommodate her needs by offering alternative options within the same plaza, and it’s unfortunate that we were unable to come to an agreement.”
Alexander said the July deadline had never been an issue before, and that nobody ever discussed moving into another space in the plaza.
“Why would I move back into the plaza when I’d been there (at the old location) for 22 years?” she asked.
Pizazz store in Dennis Port packed with summer goods
Alexander’s Pizazz store on Route 28 in Dennis Port is now packed to the rafters with children’s games, beach toys, souvenirs and jewelry. In about 2,000 square feet, she has wind chimes hanging from every ceiling panel and toys filling shelves that reach from floor to ceiling. Vacationers can find everything from plush stuffed animals to Cape Cod jewelry, boogie boards to temporary tattoos, games to t-shirts and beach towels.
The store is crammed with as much merchandise as possible. She rented a storage bin for all but five pallets of merchandise which she stored at a friend’s place.
What upset Alexander the most was not being able to tell her customers that the store was closing. A sign in the lawn at an adjacent Papa Gino’s is the only way long-time customers know where to find her.
Lucky for Alexander, the colorful beach umbrellas, beach chairs and inflatable rafts decorating the front of her Dennis Port store draw people in. Floats hang outside the store. A six-foot-long pink flamingo float is tied to the front porch balustrade next to a smaller red dragon.
Vacationer Kyle Marcoux pulled into the parking lot Tuesday morning, his three children in tow.
“We were just looking for some toys and driving by this seemed like the place,” he said, looking around the store. “Every corner there’s something new.”
His eight-year-old daughter looked over a collection of bracelets with a plush animal in hand. His son held on to an air foam cyber bow. Another daughter held up a toy to show her father.
At the other end of the store a child shouted, “Look what I got!” A little boy sat on the floor playing with a toy. A man came in, paid for two neon-colored fish nets, and left.
Alexander said she will see the same customers two, three and four times a week. And she makes sure her merchandise suits all price points. Glass vials with beach sand, shells and shark pens are on the low end. Skim boards that run $230 are on the high end. In between there are all manner of fun and frivolous items: marshmallow and incense sticks, bottle openers and fake swords and bags of colorful rocks.
“What hurt the most was the customers love us and they didn’t know what happened, where we went,” Alexander said.
Denise Coffey writes about business, tourism and issues impacting the Cape’s residents and visitors. Contact her at [email protected] .
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This article originally appeared on Cape Cod Times: Pizazz loses Yarmouth store. The landlord is Stop & Shop. What we know
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