For Sale: Guam’s Getaway Beach Bar

Enjoying a cold beer at Jeff's Pirates Cove with trade winds blowing in off the ocean and a view that includes the white-sand beach, waves breaking on either side of the Togcha Channel and the tropical horizon's primordial intersection of blues-ocean and sky-it is easy to get swept up in the timeless allure of the tropics. Removed from Guam's commercial areas with their mass-market come-ons, Jeff's offers locals as well as visitors an informal, out-of-the-way place to meet, eat, drink, lounge and become familiar with the location's unique history. After living in Guam for 41 years, 24 as owner of the Cove, Jeff Pleadwell himself is an island fixture. He came to Guam in 1962 from Hingham, Massachusetts when he was 13 and his father was hired to work at the Navy's power plant.

Now the Pirates Cove, one of Guam's oldest business establishments, is for sale on one of the world's newest business venues. Since February 2003, when Pirates Cove owner Jeff Pleadwell listed the 3.5 acre lot on eBay, the Internet marketplace, he has received a dozen serious inquiries. Among those inquiries was one from actor Nick Nolte and two offering to swap resorts, one in Mexico and the other in the Caribbean. But this novel marketing idea has not yet paid off with a closed sale.

Rebuilt and refocused over the years, the Cove today opens at 8 a.m. for breakfast and closes at 6 p.m. Jeff's menu includes his popular homemade burgers, fresh fish, a Chamorro-style fiesta plate and, as of a year ago, nine Greek dishes. Customers also often enjoy a game of volleyball, horseshoes or just walking the beach. Despite the downturn in Guam's tourism economy, annual sales at Pirates Cove have been more than US$500,000 every year since 1991 except 2001.

Jeff Pleadwell at his well-known beachside bar and restaurant. Photo: Frank Whitman

The 675 square meter main building consists of a surprisingly large gift shop, a redwood bar and about a dozen tables. (The wood for the bar top came from the gym floor of a nearby Catholic high school damaged in a 1976 typhoon). It is built to resemble the bow of a ship. Three years ago Pleadwell built a multi-purpose, concrete, A-frame structure with open sides to shelter parties and other functions. It also houses his museum displaying the fruits of years of beachcombing and a wall dedicated to the Japanese World War II straggler, Shoichi Yokoi, who was found in nearby hills in 1972.

Next to the A-frame, Pleadwell built his 288 square meter, two-story, three-bedroom dream house with a Jacuzzi and porch upstairs facing the beach. The compound is self-sufficient with its own 8,000 gallon water supply, 45 KVA power generation and septic system-features which permit Pleadwell to reopen quickly following typhoons despite the common weeks-long power and water outages.

Craft fairs in July and December are the Cove's most well-known ongoing events. Even before Pleadwell took over, he began organizing the fairs with dozens of local artisans and crafters offering a wide variety of wares. Pleadwell makes a particular effort to ensure that handicrafts from the other Micronesian Islands are available. Attracting from 500 to more than 1,000 customers, the pre-Christmas December fair is the more popular. "They had been falling off, but after the typhoon (December 2002's Pongsona), the attendance just went through the roof," Pleadwell says.

The site, in the southeast village of Ipan, Talofofo was an ancient Chamorro fishing village, according to Pleadwell. In 1944 it was developed as a rehabilitation camp for U.S. military pilots. In 1949 the camp's saltwater swimming pool, skeet range and volleyball court were devastated by Typhoon Allen. In 1953 Adrian Ladeau, "the original pirate," began Pirate's Cove as a local night club and gave the place its name when, it is said, he discovered a pair of 17th century Malay pirate ships that had been sunk in the Togcha channel. In 1964, Ladeau turned the establishment over to retired Navy cook Jimmy Cruz who ran the club until his death in 1979.

Pleadwell, at the time sales manager for now-defunct rock-and-roll radio station KATB based in nearby Manenggon, decided that the bar that had been his "neighborhood watering hole for many, many years" might be a worthwhile business investment. He offered Cruz's widow $12,000 for a two-year lease. "And I got some shareholders together and put about $30,000 capital into it the first couple of years."

Jeff's Pirate's Cove in the early 1980s featured a rock-and-roll disc jockey and was the 20-somethings' alternative to the hotel clubs in Tumon, which featured Asian bands playing pop music. On Saturday nights 300 to 400 people crammed into his club and "one night a week paid all the bills," he says. When similar clubs opened in the more heavily populated areas of the island, fewer people made the Saturday trek to Jeff's.

In 1985, the Cove underwent a major physical transformation when Typhoon Bill caused serious damage and Pleadwell had to operate for two years with about half of his floor space. A particularly successful Battle of the Bands in 1987 permitted Pleadwell to complete construction of the current main building.

The Cove has hosted more than 30 concerts including Mike Love and the Beach Boys Band, Maxi Priest, Jimmy Cliff, Cecilio & Kapono and Kapena. He also hosted successful Battles of the Bands every year from 1981 until 1988.

Despite his longevity in the hospitality business, Pleadwell sees himself as outside the industry establishment and is an outspoken critic of both it and the local government. He is adamant that the southern area is much more conducive to development than Tumon, that as an American he is at a disadvantage in attracting tourists and that the Guam Visitors Bureau should do more for tourism in the south. "Most tourism on Guam is controlled by huge wholesalers," he says. "And they say, 'don't stop at Jeff's.'" Nevertheless he estimates that 30 percent of his business comes from tourists that find their way there in rental cars or via the few tour buses that do stop there. "The tourists that come here love it," he says. And repeat visits are common. "We've just got to get them in here the first time."

Recent tax increases and continued government inefficiency are particularly annoying to the one-time independent gubernatorial candidate. "What do I get for my increased taxes?" he asks. "A big fat government that causes all the problems and never gets any better or thinner."

The property listed on eBay in February 2003 for $5 million, he then dropped the price to $3.5 million and as the one-year anniversary approached, the price now stands at $3 million with no takers, though he says the eBay posting continues to generate "light interest." If no buyer emerges from the Web, he plans to shift his focus from the primarily-U.S. eBay market to Asia. "The perfect buyer will be an eco-minded Japanese well connected with Guam's wholesale tour operators," he says. Other potential buyers include "lottery winners, tour operators, ocean researchers, aqua farmers, nature lovers and beachcombers."