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As I’ve mentioned before, Kristen and I are going to be going to Florida in July for a wedding. Kristen’s cousin is getting married and Kristen is going to be a bride’s maid in the wedding. As part of our preparation for the wedding I needed to get a sport coat. The one I had is no where to be found and probably wouldn’t fit anyway considering I bought it in high school. So, we were out and about trying to find a good sport coat, dress shirt and new tie.
First we tried Dillard’s. I’ve always been able to find clothes that I like and that fit well at Dillard’s. It’s a very nice place and typically I enjoy shopping there. So, you can imagine our surprise when the man working there told us that they didn’t have any jackets in a 58, which is the size he thought I needed. This wouldn’t be so bad, but he also didn’t know when (if ever) they would have more of that size in. He even went as far to suggest several other stores in the area that we might try, Elder Beerman and King’s, a small, locally owned formals store. So, we packed up and headed to Elder Beerman.
Having know already that they were having a sale on their formal wear, we were sure that Elder Beerman would be the place for us. We walked into the front door and made our way to the back corner of the store. After browsing through the 4 racks of sport coats we had no luck finding any jackets larger than a 52. We left and went to King’s.
We walked in and I wasn’t exactly impressed with the selection at first. Don’t get me wrong they had a lot of coats, but I was sure that they wouldn’t be stocking anything in my size. We were greeted by a man who was very friendly, and gathered that he was also the owner. He asked us how he could help us and we told him that we were looking for a sport coat. He gave me a once over, sizing me up, and then walked directly to a rack of jackets. He pulled a navy blue jacket with gold buttons of of the rack and looked at it. "That’s the one" he said. I took it and put it on and it fit well, but I was worried that it might be too big. I asked what would happen if I tried one size down and sure enough he was right, the next size down wasn’t quite big enough.
We chose the first jacket he pulled off the rack and being so pleased with the quality service decided to buy the tie there as well. He was very knowledgable and after we told him what color my shirt was going to be he picked a tie that complemented the jacket and the shirt both.
Yet another example of what makes locally-owned small businesses so great. Support your local small businesses!