Adios Harold's in the Heights...

It kills my soul to see commercial historical institutions in Houston bite the dust.  The latest is Harold's in the Heights, a landmark retail clothing store serving inner city Houston for the past 61 years.  I just hate it! My poor wife gets so tired of me telling her what "used to be there" or "that location used to be a ____".  She finally had to tell me, "I really do love you, but I don't really care what that building was in 1978!"  So now I try and keep my sorrow to myself.  We've seen countless restaurants fail over the years, and I guess that's just the nature of the business.  But when institutions like Harold's go under, something went wrong...somebody screwed up and didn't change their business model to adjust to market conditions...or something economically driven like that.  I've heard several explanations as to why Harold's failed, but for the sake of this post I'm not going to get into all that.

Harold's has been around forever, always known by it's owner's verbose commercials and radio ads about how he dresses 90 and shoots 70 if his putter's good...or something like that.  Harold Weisenthal was from the old school of traditional clothing sales.  He was always on the floor to greet you, always had a new joke and nearly always had a quick story to tell you about some local sports figure who just came into the store.  He was a philanthropist in the community and a serious family man.  His son Michael worked in the store for the past 45 years.  I had the privilege to meet Harold several times and even purchased a suit from him once in the early 1990's.  He was friends with Bum Phillips, the legendary Houston Oilers football coach.  I told him a quick story about how Bum was a student under my Grandfather in Beaumont and that Bum took several swats from him on several occasions.  Harold instantly pulled out the phone, called Bum and chatted quickly about his memory of my Grandfather, to which Bum instantly recounted and confirmed the story of Mr. Hybarger and that big wooden paddle.

Today, it's all about sales and buy one get one's.  Nobody has time to chat anymore, to get to know their customers.  Rarely do you find the owner actually in the store, just a manager trying to make increased numbers to impress a private equity ownership group somewhere up East.  Like Harold, I try very hard to get to know my customers, understand their personal life and how their clothing and appearance works within that life.  To me, that's how you build a business and earn customers.

I think more of us need to go "old school" like Harold.  I know Houston has to make changes, move on with economic growth and continue rapid infrastructure expansion.  I just don't understand why small little gems of the old Houston I love have to go by the wayside.  Even though Harold's, in essence, was a competitor, he was part of the Houston landscape that made us proud Houstonians.  So I will miss him...and someday when we drive by his old building I'll say, "That's where Harold's in the Heights used to be."  And my son will probably say, "Dad, please stop telling me what everything used to be!"  I'll just smile and keep driving.

Enough rant about old businesses, I guess the Astrodome is next.