Lil' Abner's put on the market

Owner David Hoffman is asking $5.5 million for the restaurant and adjacent 8.8 acres of land, prime real estate along North Silverbell Road in Marana’s burgeoning Continental Ranch neighborhood. The sale is listed by commercial real estate broker Mike Beck and his Voyager Bay Co.

The lot is sandwiched between two strip plazas housing everything from a Mexican restaurant and insurance offices to a nail salon and physical therapy office. It is big enough for a similar shopping plaza or a sizable retail business such as a grocery store.

Hoffman, 71, who has owned the restaurant for 34 of its 68 years, said he is hopeful whoever buys the property at 8501 N. Silverbell Road will continue operating the restaurant. But the potential to develop the land, zoned commercial, might attract a buyer not interested in the historic steakhouse.

“This may be the end of Lil’ Abner’s,” Hoffman conceded. “That would make me sad.”

“The historical loss would be great,” said Marana Mayor Ed Honea, who remembers going to Abner’s as a kid in the 1950s and ’60s for birthday celebrations and special events.

“It’s kind of a place that if a group comes into town from almost anywhere and they know anything about the history, they want to go to Abner’s … that land is very valuable on Silverbell. It’s worth a lot of money, but that business is, too.”

Lil’ Abner’s has been around since Larry Lewis opened it as a bar in 1947. He was an optician and his wife Duchess was a former Hollywood dancer. The couple lived and worked on the property; he ran his office on the back side of the restaurant and they lived in a small brick house that still stands next to the ranch-style eatery.

Most of their early customers were cowboys and ranch hands who made the trip there on a two-lane dirt road.

Hoffman was Lil’ Abner’s fourth owner: Lewis’ cook bought the restaurant from Lewis then sold it to Don Norman, who sold it to Hoffman in 1981 for about $1 million, Hoffman said. He was Norman’s attorney and also represented Norman’s son Michael when he was arrested in 1979 on counterfeiting charges. Michael Norman was convicted of trying to sell $500,000 in counterfeit bills to undercover officers. Much of that money was found buried in cola canisters on Lil’ Abner’s property.

Hoffman gave up his law practice within months of taking over the restaurant and ran Lil’ Abner’s for three years before handing over the daily operation to his on-site management team. Hoffman then turned his attention to renovating the 10-acre former YWCA camp Rancho Los Cerros in Catalina State Park that he bought in 1985. Hoffman and his wife Molly bred horses for a spell and operated the property as a large-scale corporate events venue, a business that thrived until the economic downturn a few years ago.

Molly Hoffman said the staff at Lil’ Abner’s, many of whom have worked there for decades, were told about plans to sell the restaurant.

“It’s heartbreaking because that’s part of old Tucson for me,” said waitress Connie Gilbert, a former professional volleyball player with the now-defunct Tucson Sky team who has worked at the restaurant since Hoffman bought it. “I’m from California and I’ve seen them tear things down. My heart’s broken. I can’t imagine a Tucson without Lil’ Abner’s.”

“I’m hoping to get someone that will like to keep the restaurant open and keep it original,” added waitress Amanda Darby, a Marana native who has worked there for 15 years. “All of my family worked here — my mom, my dad, my sister. And soon it will be my daughter’s turn. She’s 12; she’s got four more years.”

David Hoffman, whose 24-year-old son Tucker waits tables at the restaurant, said the timing is right to sell.

“I’m going to be 72 in March and I think I’ve worked long enough,” the elder Hoffman said. “It’s been great. I’ve had a lot of fun. But it’s time to see what the next person does.”

“They may knock it down, which would be terrible,” he added. “I don’t know whether Abner’s will continue to exist with a new buyer.”

“I just can’t see shutting down that restaurant,” Mayor Honea said. “I would just hope that somebody would come in there with a really good, fun idea.”