50-year-old Buckhead five-and-dime is 'like walking through your own childhood'

F.W. WOOLWORTH CO. lives , well sort of.. In todays AJC they have a story about an 5 & Dime store in Buckhead it's called Richard's Variety Store. If you have not visited that store you are in for a treat, It's like going back in time. It reminds me of the F.W. WOOLWORTH CO. that was in Decatur. the floor, the smell even the The Champion horse ride for kids.

By ROSALIND BENTLEY
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Published on: 06/14/08

Photo: At Richard's, Gracie Dorminy, 4, and other youngsters can ride a 10-cent horse while their parents shop.
Renee' Hannans Henry/AJC

If you want to play stump the clerk, the last place to try it is at Richard's Variety Store in Buckhead.

It seems the perfect place for such a game, considering the first 100 square feet of the store contain: faux blue-and-white porcelain, bandannas from brown to lime green, natural bristle fingernail/vegetable brushes, tote bags, cheeky greeting cards rated G to R; flip-flops, yodeling pickles, thread, Groucho Marx glasses, watering cans, wicker baskets, wrapping paper, Webkinz, ladies' handkerchiefs, Instant Irish Accent Spray and cotton footies.

Should you require a Dick and Jane reader, Yatzhee, Travel Yatzhee, Lincoln Logs, knock-off lava lamp, egg cup, cast-iron skillet, tiki glass, sombrero, Indonesian Barbie, flashing reindeer ears, flashlight, zester, clothespins or croquet set, you'll have to venture deeper into the store.

Hah, you say. I can find footies at a dollar store. And maybe she won't be Indonesian, but I can find Barbie at Target. Could be.

But at those places you probably can't get keys made and let your kids ride a 10-cent pony while they wait, which you can do at Richard's. It's the pride of store associates to know where everything is, which most do. And if they don't, they holler at each other across the aisles, "Where's the tambourines?" "Do we have any chalkboards?"

These days when big-box stores anchor every freeway exit and dirt-cheap discounters dot strip malls, a place such as Richard's is not nearly so familiar. Anything the store doesn't sell?
"A cowbell," said Lolalene Hollis. She's a lanky 24-year-old with a big smile, who has worked this, her first and only job, since age 17, so you figure she knows what she's talking about. "If you want that or an air horn, you gotta go down to Ace Hardware. Otherwise, we probably have it."

The odds of finding an old-fashioned mercantile such as this are about as good as meeting a third-generation Atlantan — a rare and intriguing find indeed.

Robert Klenberg is in varying measures a rare find. He likes to say that he tried to get hired at the store when it opened at the Peachtree Battle Shopping Center in 1958. He was 4. Neither Klenberg's father, Max, the owner, nor his Uncle Richard — for whom the store is named — would hire him. Same for his late grandfather Frank, who was also part of the family business. By age 5, however, Klenberg had talked his way in and had to be the shortest stock boy on the payroll.

"I grew up in this store," Klenberg said. "This is my one, true home."

Now, 50 years later, Klenberg is owner and proprietor of one of the metro area's last standing five-and-dimes. And on the 50th anniversary of this Atlanta mainstay, change is coming, but the question is will longtime customers who appreciate its one-of-a-kindness go for it?

Same as it ever was

There was a time when Richard's had as many as seven Atlanta locations, long before enclosed malls drained away vitality and shoppers.

Initially there was some debate over which Klenberg brother the stores would be named for.

"Richard's, Max's or Frank's — you tell me which has the better ring," Klenberg said to a recent visitor.

It also didn't hurt that Uncle Richard had a deep, dark, storied past as a spy against the Nazis, Klenberg said, which added weight to the argument that the stores should be named for him. "Plus, Richard's sounded a little like Rich's" — the defunct Atlanta department store — "and people are familiar with that."

Robert worked at the store until he hit his rebellious teens, tried to start a couple of businesses of his own during his lean 20s, then came back to the shop at Peachtree Battle Shopping Center before he hit 30.

His dad made him start over again as a stock boy. The climb to the top was steep, but by 1994, Klenberg had bought his father out, and now Richard's is Robert's, though he decided to keep the original name.

Of the original tenants at the shopping center, only Richard's remains. It is a testament to the durability of the store's if-it-ain't-broke-don't-fix-it business model.

All Richard's merchandise screams new, new, NEW! But look past the razzle-dazzle packaging; in fact, look down at the floor. Those beige and brown tiles buffed to an impossible shine are original. The baseboards, too. The yellowed pegboard holding the hammers, original. The glass-front bins that hold seasonal miscellany, original.
And when the original aluminum and cloth shopping baskets got too shabby to hold much of anything, one of the clerks took the baskets home three at a time and hand-stitched new fabric on all 35. She stopped short of giving the worn frames fresh coats of red spray paint.

'Like childhood again'

"In the middle of Buckhead, where everything is so high-maintenance, I love that there's this little stuck-in-the-past store. It's like walking through your own childhood again," said 39-year-old Melissa Adams. Adams had come for a hula hoop for her daughter's sixth birthday and was debating whether to buy a second.

"I don't know, I used to be pretty good at it," Adams said.

Maybe that's part of the store's magic, its draw.

The faint mustiness, the drone of fluorescents overhead, the delightful shock of finding Tiddledy Winks or a Magic 8 Ball, this is why they all come. Decorators, housekeepers, nannies, chauffeurs arrive with shopping lists for clients.

Buckhead moms show up on Saturday mornings searching for presents for afternoon parties. Ex-Atlantans call in with orders, even though cities such as New York and San Francisco surely have stores that sell strainers or rain bonnets.

The other day Natalie Lacey, Buckhead mom of a 10-month-old daughter, came in and let Klenberg know there was big business to be done in hair ribbons, because ribbons were a trend among the high school set now — "Like the preppy trend in the '80s," she said — and he must get yardage in all the neighboring private-school colors and in classic motifs such as stripes and polka dots.

Lacey had come that day for knee socks.

"You have no idea how hard it is to find knee socks now," she confided.

Knee socks? Do people still wear knee socks? And why not just go to a mall to find them?

"Oh," Lacey said, recoiling ever so slightly. "Nobody goes to malls anymore. Too time-consuming and too, just too ..." she said, choosing her words carefully, "just too much of a hassle."

More of a good thing

After 50 years of giving the people what they want, except cowbells, change is afoot. And it's a great big foot, 18,000 square feet to be exact.

In August, Klenberg will open a second location in the Midtown Promenade Center on Monroe Drive. All the favorites will be there, as well as books for adults (though not "adult books"), clothes and candy. Candy. Candy. Candy.

"I took candy out of here a while ago, and it was the biggest mistake I ever made," Klenberg said as he walked through the old store.

But isn't a second store a risk? Won't it dull the charm of the original? Klenberg said he doesn't quite liken it to a mortal sin, but he does say it's a necessary business evil; he needs more space to stay competitive.

"It is sacrilege," said Bill Becker, a 48-year-old Atlanta Realtor and a Richard's devotee since 1984. "But [Klenberg] won't screw it up. He knows what he's doing and he does it well."