Retail Roundup: Frances Kahn celebrates 30 years

Tucked away inside a Tanglewood-area shopping center, a high-end speciality clothing store, Frances Kahn, has been serving customers for 30 years.

“We’ve dressed three generations,” said assistant store manager Andrea Dixon , who has been with the company for 27 years, 16 of them at the Roanoke store. Store manager Rose Stavale has worked at the Roanoke store for 25 years.

Frances Kahn opened at Roanoke County’s Grand Pavilion in 1983 following the success of stores in Lynchburg and Danville, where the company was founded. Those stores have since closed. Frances Kahn also has stores in Richmond and Virginia Beach.

The business got its start in 1936, following the worst of the Great Depression. Founders Frances and August Kahn had only enough money to open in the bottom half of a two-story building in downtown Danville. The business slowly grew and expanded, and the couple’s daughter and son-in-law, Lorraine and Nathan Lester , took over in the late 1940s.

Their son, Rusty Lester, joined the family business in 1974 after working at Rich’s Department store in Atlanta. He introduced the store’s customers to names such as Calvin Klein and Perry Ellis.

Lester opened a second Frances Kahn store in Lynchburg in 1977. Many of its customers were Roanokers, prompting the opening of the Roanoke store in 1983. The Danville store was sold that year.

The Richmond store opened in 1988 and Virginia Beach in 2003.

Stavale, who worked retail on New York City’s famed Seventh Avenue, got to know Lester as a customer at the store where she worked. Disenchanted with New York, she joined Frances Kahn in 1988. Dixon managed the Lynchburg store until it closed in 1996.

The women frequently traveled to New York to attend buyer meetings and returned with knowledge they shared with their staff.

They’ve watched as shopping has gone from a recreational activity to a rushed necessity, and they’ve seen the business through its ups and downs.

The onslaught of online shopping hurt business, but Stavale said the staff’s customer service is what kept the store viable.

“The one thing that separates us is our customer service,” Dixon said. “We are like personal shoppers to our customers.”

The recession also challenged the business, as customers cut down spending on luxury items.

Lester responded by introducing contemporary and less expensive lines such as Elizabeth and James, Alice + Olivia, Vince and Brochu Walker.

“Rusty got into lines that really helped carry the business through the tough times, and our customers changed along with it,” Stavale said.

Last year the women noticed that their customers were ready to spend money again. They are continuing to see more interest this year, they said.

Early last week, the store received nearly a dozen trunks via UPS in preparation for the store’s Lafayette trunk show, one of several they put on every year.

“It’s like bringing Seventh Avenue to the store,” Dixon said.

Hair salon moves to Roanoke

The owner of a hair salon and beauty school has moved her shop to Roanoke after 13 years in Salem and has closed the school.

St. Pierre Salon has set up at 401 Campbell Ave., inside a building recently renovated for retail and apartments.

Owner Cynthia St. Pierre said she decided to close the hair academy and move to a smaller space because she wanted put her focus on her clients and cutting hair, rather than training hair stylists.

“I have an incredible passion for hair,” she said. “I really just want to focus on what I do best.”

She said she is looking forward to building relationships with new clients and “giving downtown Roanoke a new look.”

Working with her are her son, Lane Mabry, and daughter, Olivia St. Pierre.

Mabry is also a stylist and is an educator for the product company Rusk. Olivia St. Pierre is her mother’s last student, on her way to becoming a stylist.

The salon is the third tenant to take one of the building’s retail and office spaces. An investment company has leased one space, and Faisal Khan, the developer of the building, has his office in another space.

Vinton diner up for sale

Leonard Barrow loves to cook, and he’d always dreamed of opening a restaurant. Last year, that dream became a reality when he and his wife opened the Vinton Diner and Ice Cream Parlor.

But nearly a year after opening the South Pollard Street restaurant, the Barrows have decided to try to sell the 1950s-style diner. Leonard Barrow suffers from multiple sclerosis, and operating the restaurant is taking a toll on his health, his wife, April, said.

“We knew it was going to be hard,” April Barrow said. “With his health, it’s just not feasible for him to do this.”

Leonard Barrow runs the restaurant with the help of one employee. April Barrow said it’s not financially possible to hire someone to take over operations. She works full time as an insurance agent.

The good news for the Barrows is that they are talking with a potential buyer, April Barrow said last week. Even if the sale happens, the Barrows still plan to close at the end of the month.

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