If you venture deep into the back rooms of Budds, a landmark clothing store in the heart of Kitchener, Ont., you’ll find some of the elements that made it unique.
There’s a pneumatic tube system that looks like it came out of the pages of Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Sea, which was used to send money and receipts between sales stations in the store and the back room where the cash was kept. There’s a printing press that would have been familiar to Johannes Gutenberg, which was used to fashion notices advertising sales and other specials; there’s a folder with yellowing tear sheets with copies of Budds ads that ran in local newspapers – 50 years ago. And of course there’s the clutter that you get when you’ve been in business in the same location for 89 years.
A cultural icon since 1926
But beyond the artifacts that customers recall with fondness and have piqued the interest of the local museum, Budds will be especially remembered for the hands-on, personalized customer service that allowed it to stay in business and outlast the likes of Eaton’s and other popular department stores.
All that will be gone by the end of January, when the Budd family will close the family business that has been a shopping and cultural icon in the heart of Kitchener since 1926.
It’s time to retire, agree brothers Howie and Stan, now in their 70s and the second generation of the family to operate the store. Howie’s son, Jeff, 45, who started in the business sweeping floors and making suit boxes before he graduated to sign maker, said the business is too large for just one person to run properly.
In addition to the Kitchener store, which is located on King Street West in the heart of downtown, the Budds operate smaller outlets in Guelph and Simcoe.
The Kitchener store alone covers 28,000 square feet, while Guelph and Simcoe have 15,000 square feet each.
Despite the imposing scale of the stores, the Budds were able to offer a unique brand of service that is all too absent in today’s impersonal big box stores.
They knew many of their customers personally, and many are the second and third generation of families who began shopping there years ago.
The Budds spend much of their time on the floor, meeting and greeting customers and tending to their needs. Offering middle to high-end merchandise at reasonable prices, they make it a point of going the extra mile to bring in items that other stores can’t be bothered to stock. If a woman wants a 44 triple D bra, they’ll special order it, even if it’s only one unit, Howie said.
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They’ve special ordered slacks with a 60-inch waist for one customer, Jeff recalled.
“We’re flexible. We can move quickly. There’s no red tape,” explained Stan.
“The big stores are getting bigger, but the Budds are getting better,” he added, still speaking in the present tense. “We’re hands on.”
That personalized service, attention to detail and heimish environment made Budds the go-to store for generations of Kitchener residents.
Avrum Rosensweig, president and CEO of Ve’ahavta, remembers running throughout the store as a kid.
“Budds Stores was a place my sisters and I would go to with excitement,” he said.
The pneumatic tubes were particularly entertaining. “As a kid, this was very amazing to watch, almost like I was at a circus,” he said.
Beyond that, Budds played an important role in the life of both the local Jewish community and the broader one.
“Budds was a staple store in downtown Kitchener and important to the Jewish community… When my father was alive, he would frequently ask the Budds for clothing for newcomers to the Kitchener Jewish community. Over the last 20 years, I have asked the family for clothing for the homeless. They never said no to my father, and they never say no to me,” Rosensweig said.
Stan and Howie are the second generation in the family to operate the store. Jeff is the third, but they repeatedly give credit to the first generation of Budds, who founded it.
Their story goes all the way back to 1926. At the time, the Budd family was living in Saint John, N.B., and one of the brothers, Lou, was a travelling salesman whose territory was southwestern Ontario.
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While in Kitchener he learned that businessman Jack Davis, one of the founders of the 107-year-old Beth Jacob Congregation, was looking to sell a business on King Street. The asking price was $10,000, but between them, brothers Lou, Jack, Mort and Nat could scrounge together only $500. Undeterred, they visited the CIBC branch at King and Queen streets. Though they had little in the way of collateral, the manager was impressed with their work ethic and, based on nothing more than a gut feeling, he approved the loan on the spot, Stan and Howie recounted.
The brothers repaid the loan in two years, instead of the expected three, and never looked back.
In 1931 they opened a second store in downtown Guelph, and in 1933, they moved the Kitchener store down the street to its current location. They opened a third store in Simcoe in 1937.
Even in the midst of the Great Depression, the Budd stores thrived. The same formula for success – hands-on ownership, meeting customers on the floor – has stood the test of time, Stan and Howie say.
The two brothers, sons of Nat, got involved in the business in the 1960s after learning the ropes in other retail stores.
“We learned how not to run a business,” Howie said of the experience.
In 1966, they expanded the premises to its current Leviathan proportions.
Jeff, who taught hockey skills in Metulla, Israel, for a time, joined the others in 1997, making for three generations of Budds in the clothing business.
Budds “brought the family together”
But there won’t be a fourth. None of his cousins are interested in maintaining the family enterprise, and Jeff believes “It’s not a one-man show.”
Remarkably, Howie and Stan have been working side by side, six days a week, for 50 years and still get along.
“A lot of family businesses tear the families apart,” said Jeff. “This one brought us closer together.”
“We never had a serious argument to the point where it broke up our families,” Stan said, and Howie agreed.
As for the store itself, a lot of people are putting in dibs for memorabilia. The local museum will be looking at some of the more interesting pieces, such as the pneumatic tube network.
It still works, but instead of sending cash and receipts from sales stations to the office, it now delivers candy to kids. Eyes wide with the wonder, those children will no doubt make for one more generation of Kitchener residents who will take with them fond memories of Budds – a store that will be gone, but not forgotten.
