|
Aug. 16, 2013
Goodbye Honest Ed’s
Toronto institution is up for sale – or closure.
PAUL LUNGEN CANADIAN JEWISH NEWS
When I first moved to Toronto, people used to joke that you knew you were over the city when you could see Honest Ed’s from 20,000 feet in the air. At the corner of Bloor and Bathurst streets, you certainly can’t miss it. Its over-the-top signage illuminates not just the corner, but an entire square block, and parts of the Annex as well.
During my first sweltering summer in the city, I purchased a 3,500-BTU window air conditioner for $330 or so from Honest Ed’s. A bargain! My first walk through the place was an eye-opener. It had the feel of a discount store merged with a midway. And those floors. What was it with the wavy floors?
I soon learned it was a Toronto institution. “Honest Ed” Mirvish, who founded the business, was a showman, a master marketer and a man-about-town. Every summer, people lined up to take part in Ed’s birthday celebrations and, in December, they lined up again to get the free turkeys the store gave away. As the man on the store’s answering machine says: “There’s no place like this place anyplace.”
But not for long.
Within three years, Honest Ed’s will be no more. Ed died in 2007, and his son, David, announced that the 160,000-square-foot department store will close, as will the smaller businesses that line Markham Street, one block west of Bathurst.
“We’re selling all the properties,” said Mirvish. “All businesses have lifecycles. You want to move on while you’re successful and grow your business in the manner that presents the greatest opportunities.”
Mirvish said he’s looking for a single buyer of all the properties, and that he’s going to be selective in that choice.
“I hope to pick someone who does us proud, who will be a city builder and do honor to the neighborhood, someone [who will] make a mark on the city,” he said. “This is an opportunity for them.”
Mirvish rejected suggestions by some that the store should be designated a heritage site.
“All businesses and cities evolve. Would you really want to make a heritage site out of something you don’t use?” he said, referring to Honest Ed’s declining business. It’s still profitable, he acknowledged, but revenues have been decreasing, on average, since its heyday in the 1970s and ’80s. With changes in the retail environment and with the advent of Internet shopping, the trend is clear, Mirvish said – the store is no longer capable of supporting the surrounding neighborhood with it.
“From my childhood to 1990, everyone prospered around us because of the value of our store,” he said, adding he’d like that to continue with new owners and a new business plan.
Russell Lazar has been with Honest Ed’s from pretty close to the beginning, joining the business 55 years ago, working in the stock room. He moved on to sales and, about 37 or 38 years ago, he became general manager.
When he arrived, the store was already a going concern, as Ed had started two small businesses in 1941 that sold women’s clothing. Mirvish recalled that his father cashed a $225 insurance policy and paid two months rent for a 20-by-20 space he called the Sports Bar; he’d get dresses on credit on Spadina Avenue and sell them in the store.
In 1948, Ed expanded to a single room called Honest Ed’s. He became an early innovator in discount shopping at a time when Toronto’s retail market was dominated by Eaton’s and Simpsons, whose pricing was not very flexible, explained Mirvish.
His father realized that the key to success would be to buy and sell in volume and turn merchandise over quickly. Goods were to be sold in two or three weeks, anything that didn’t move was marked down and then, if still unsold, shipped out, Lazar said.
Ed would sell merchandise within two weeks and pay suppliers in 60 days; he’d also negotiate a discount from suppliers if he paid them early, Mirvish said.
“Cash was always available, and it worked on turnover,” Lazar added. “You were always in a great cash position, and that hasn’t changed today. In all the years, Honest Ed’s has never had to go to the bank.”
The store still “puts thousands of shoppers through the cash registers,” said Lazar. It continues to attract people from around the city, though not in the numbers it once did. “It’s a comfortable place to shop. It takes you back to yesteryear,” Lazar said, and “prices are not that much higher than decades ago.”
About why his father never expanded the store and created a chain, Mirvish said, “He liked being in the store every day, seeing the customers’ reactions” to the merchandise.
Mirvish added, “Dad did not want a chain. He wanted to control ‘shrinkage,’” meaning shoplifting. Low prices, volume sales, quick turnover, a close watch on theft – that formula hasn’t changed much in 50-plus years, Mirvish said. “Dad created a carnival atmosphere. He wanted shopping to be fun.”
– For more national Jewish news, visit cjnews.com.
^TOP
|
