After 48 years in the furniture business, Pat Partridge plans to spend a lot more time kicking back in a nice recliner chair.

His store, Partridge Fine Furniture, will soon shut down with his retirement.

Partridge was only 15 when his dad Archie opened Eastown Furniture at Dundas and First streets in 1959.

“I couldn’t even drive the delivery truck. Talk about learning from the ground up,” he said.

He got his driver’s licence the day he turned 16 and started delivering furniture to customers and picking up new stock from the small furniture factories that once dotted the region.

In 1982, the store moved to Fanshawe Park Road and the named was changed to Partridge Fine Furniture.

He said the business has changed dramatically over the years. Foreign imports have displaced most of the Canadian manufacturers and retailing is dominated by a few big chains.

But Partridge has managed to prosper with a middle-of-the-road product line and building a personal relationship with customers.

One female customer comes up to chat with Partridge in his store and wish him well in retirement.

“In a small business, you get to know your customers by name. I haven’t seen her in 10 years but I remember selling her and her husband furniture when they got married 40 years ago,” he said.

Partridge says he and his wife Jean have no big retirement plans other than to take their first vacation in 10 years.

“In small business, if you want things to run right you have to be right here.”

The store will open for a big liquidation sale on Friday, selling down to the bare walls.

“The time was right for this. This is just a matter of getting out when you want to,” said Partridge.

Source

This entry was posted on Thursday, July 12th, 2007 at 3:05 pm and is filed under Furniture, Furniture Store. Tags: Furniture, Furniture Store, Jean, retail, Small, . You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.