LIVERMORE FALLS – Steve Berry was running in and out of his new gas station Monday morning to serve customers.

Berry opened BH Variety, a family oriented business, early Saturday. The Livermore man, who is a partner with his dad, Tom Berry, in Berry Hill Fuels, said he had thought about opening a gas station several years ago when the Irving Station closed. But he wasn’t quite ready. The station, next to Murray Hall, reopened for a short term after that, but then the new owner died and it closed, he said.

This time Berry decided he was ready. The new store is more a family venture with his wife, Michelle, her dad, Richard Fowles, of Monson, who will be moving to the area and Berry’s children.

For a now, Berry said he wants to learn how to run the station and “get if off the ground” himself before he hires someone to help him.

“With all the new automated equipment,” he said, “it’s mind boggling.”

He was running a credit card through the system Monday and at the same time trying to take care of customers that were driving in for service. He accepts all credit cards and cash, but not checks. He’s in the midst of getting his shelves stocked inside for convenience items.

The inside isle closest to the building offers full-service and the outside isle is for self-service. He was washing the windows of Mike Roy’s truck and advising a woman on how to move her car to the full-service lane, which she wanted in the first place. She had already driven around the pumps trying to get her gas tank in line before she halted at the wrong isle.

“I’m having fun now,” Berry said, as he ran by. “It keeps me thin – I guess.”

Eventually, once all the gas is setup, he said, the station will expand to accept payment and orders for fuel oil for the Berry Hill Fuel business to make it easier on customers who don’t like to drive to Livermore.

“I’m just trying to go back to ‘large enough to serve – small enough to care,'” he said.

dperry@sunjournal.com