Rottles closes out 76 years of service to Auburn and surrounding area

Published 3:50 pm Wednesday, July 1, 2015

Excepting the last jackets, collars, shirts and cufflinks, scattered among empty racks, mirrors, idle tape measures and like fixtures, Rottles Clothing & Shoes was an empty shell.

Throughout Saturday morning and afternoon, customers kept dropping by to say so long to twins Jim and John Rottle and to scan what was left at the end of the store’s 3-month-long close-out sale.

Customers and friends, the Rottles boys knew ’em all.

But when the big hand hit 4 o’clock, with one simple turn of a key, Rottles and its 76 years of service to Auburn passed into history.

Much to the regret of customers.

“I’ve lived in Auburn for 25 years and I’ve shopped here for 25 years,” said Auburn resident Lori Anderson. “It’s sad, and I’m going to miss them. They were so easy to work with when I needed something quick, they were right there, nice and convenient.”

Susan, a longtime customer added: “It’s the end of an era.”

Too soon to talk about feelings, John Rottle said, looking around the store.

Plenty of time for that later. After cleanup, he said.

“It’s extremely bittersweet,” Rottle said. “For all the relief that we feel, the emptiness that’s going to be presented by not serving the community is more strongly felt now than anything else.”

“Anti-climactic, quite frankly, but we achieved the goal we set out to do, and we’re ready to move on,” added Jim Rottle. “It was a win-win deal: people got good deals, and we needed to run out of everything.”

The Rottle family announced the store’s pending closure last April.

Changing times

According to the brothers, Rottles, like other stores of its kind, had been struggling to keep up with the larger, corporate, chain-heavy competition. The retail landscape of brick-and-mortar retailing had changed dramatically, they said, with the advent of Internet sales, big box stores and a general downgrading of dress codes.

“The fashion culture has changed,” Jim Rottle said in April. “Most of our key manufacturers are actually competing against us with either outlet stores or selling over the Internet. It’s making it harder for retail partners to survive. The intent may be to increase brand awareness, but they are taking the market share we helped build.”

The change in Rottles suppliers only added to the uncertainty. The store’s formal wear supplier in Fife was about to close and the factory that provided letterman’s jackets, a store tradition, was ready to shift its operations from Lakewood to Wisconsin.

The closure of the store ends a family tradition.

The lineage began when Abdo, a Lebanese immigrant, opened a modest store in 1939, occupying 3,500 square feet, employing three.

When Abdo retired, his son, Don, took over the store in 1953. Nine years later, he moved the store from where the Auburn mini-mall stood to its current location. Over time, Rottles became the go-to apparel store, carving out a family-friendly niche with its customers in the teeth of larger competition.

In time, the store underwent renovations and grew. Its inventory changed with the changing tastes of its customers.

Just as Don did when he was young, John and Jim began to work for their father and learn the business from the ground up. As teenagers, they worked in receiving and swept floors. After each went off to school and earned a business degree, they returned to help the family patriarch.

And they made it work.

“We’ve heard a lot from customers, and they’ve all been extremely grateful, not only in what we meant to them but also in that they understood our position and wished us the best,” said John Rottle.

“Sad to see you go, that was overwhelmingly the most-frequently-made comment,” said Jim Rottle.

Employees were taking it hard.

“It’s hard knowing that you’re not going to have a job, but at the same time I’m excited that the boys get to retire,” said Cheryl Gorrie, who’d worked for Rottles for almost 10 years. “But I’ve done a little bit of everything here, and that should give me an edge on finding a new job.”

Another employee, close to tearing up, waved off questions.

The Rottle family hopes to sell or lease the two-story, 15,000-square-foot building to a “viable retail business” to serve the community and its growing, downtown residential population.