DIXFIELD — Abbey Pinkham and Ellie Hall, both 19, were driving down Weld Street when they saw something that gave them pause: a for sale/lease sign in the front window of Surry Seafood Co.

Pinkham, who had worked at Surry Seafood Co. for two years, was surprised to see it for sale, so she reached out to owner Clint Bradbury.

“We gave Clint a call, and we found out that he and his wife were currently unable to run the business, and had put the building up for lease or sale,” Pinkham said. “I looked at Ellie, and I told her, ‘We could probably do this.’”

Within a week, Pinkham and Hall had met with Bradbury twice and worked out an agreement to temporarily run the store for the summer.

“We just decided to go for it,” Pinkham said. “We kind of worked out an agreement where they would lease the building and let us run the business. After six days, we were given the keys to the building. It’s pretty crazy.”

Before Pinkham and Hall could begin running the business, they had to apply for a slew of licenses, including a resale certificate and a wholesale certificate for the business.

“We needed to make sure the business was licensed to run again,” Pinkham said. “After we got everything set up, we were able to open the store again.”

For Pinkham and Hall, running Surry Seafood is not as simple as working a 9-to-5 shift and punching out after eight hours. Although they have six other employees, both stay at the store for the entire day.

Pinkham has the added responsibility of driving the store’s refrigerator truck to the docks in Portland and Freeport twice a week to pick up fish.

“The first time I drove down there, it was a little nerve-racking, because I’ve never driven a truck like that before, but once you do it, it’s easy,” Pinkham said.

Hall said Pinkham wakes up around 5 a.m. to drive the refrigerator truck to the docks, resulting in days that sometimes stretch to 16 hours.

“While she drives to the docks, I’ll stay in Dixfield and open the store,” Hall said. “I know how to drive the truck too, but we always need to make sure that one of us is here at the store.”

Hall said had never worked at Surry Seafood before.

“I used to hang out at the store and wait for Abbey to get out of work, and sometimes, I would help in the kitchen, so I was used to the store and what needed to be done,” Hall said.

On top of running the counter and driving the refrigerator truck to the docks twice a week, Pinkham and Hall said they are responsible for making sure that all of the seafood in the display cases are iced in the cooler at night, and that everything is brought out of the cooler and into the case in the morning.

“There’s also a lot of cleaning,” Pinkham said with a laugh. “We’re constantly cleaning.”

Pinkham is heading into her second year at St. Joseph’s College in the fall with a focus in political science and international relations, while Hall will enter her second year at University of Southern Maine with a focus in business and economics.

Hall said managing a business has already helped her learn new things related to her college major.

“It’s pretty strange,” Hall said. “It’s my first year of college, and I’m already applying some of the things I’ve learned in school to what we’re doing here at Surry’s. I mean, what better way to get hands-on experience than jumping right into the field I’m trying to get into?”

As for Pinkham, managing a seafood store doesn’t directly translate into her political science major, but she said it “looks good on a resume.” After school she is looking to do “nonprofit management.”

“In a way, managing this store sort of ties into nonprofit management, especially the managing side of it,” Pinkham said.

Hall said the feedback from the community has been “huge,” and people are “just glad to see the store open again.”

“I hear at least five people a day telling us how thankful they are that we opened this year, and that they didn’t think it was going to open,” Hall said.

While the reopening of Surry Seafood under Pinkham and Hall has been successful, it will likely be a temporary position for both of them.

“We’re both going back to school in September, so the store will close again after that,” Pinkham said. “That’s sort of near the end of the season. At this point, we’re not sure if we’re going to do it again. It depends on how the rest of this year goes. We’ll see what happens.”

Pinkham said that during the coming year, she has plans to take a mission trip to Haiti to volunteer, while Hall said she will be volunteering in the Summer Olympics in Rio.

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