West Bend, Wi – After 18 years in business, Cherry Pickins’, a popular, locally owned consignment store in downtown West Bend, Wi, is closing. “I am retiring,” said owner Heidi Parlow, confident in the decision this time. Three years ago Parlow was on a similar path; she thought she was ready.
She wasn’t.
“I was going to close and then I got quite sad,” Parlow said. “So I said, I guess I’m not ready because my customers have been just wonderful.”
Now, at 66, Parlow said the timing feels different. Her husband is 71, and she wants the freedom to do some of the things they have talked about, including taking their camper and simply leaving town for a while.
And after nearly two decades of unlocking the doors at 337 N. Main Street every morning, the idea of having somewhere else to be is beginning to sound pretty good.
But closing Cherry Pickins’ is about more than ending a business.
It is the closing of a chapter in a building that has had several lives, and in a downtown neighborhood that has changed dramatically.
The building that has housed Cherry Pickins’ was never just a retail store.
Parlow knows that history particularly well because her family was part of it.
Her father, Ted Hochrein, bought the building in the 1970s. At various times, it was home to furniture and appliance businesses, including Family Furniture, which later moved to the highway and became Furniture and Design.
Before that, the building was associated with an electric company.
And there was a gas station. Parlow brings out a Xeroxed photo of Bohn’s Oil Co.
“It was actually the electric company with that gas station there,” Parlow said.
The gas station was on the north side of the property, in what is now part of the parking area. She remembers the old pumps, complete with their large, round tops.
Other neighbors in the early years included the empty lot across the highway where LifeStar/EMS had a facility. Across Main Street, the Chris and Larry Porter property was associated with a quilt shop. There were taverns, including 3 Old Guys where the Antidote is and there was M&I Bank, a place Parlow remembers from childhood because it was where she opened her first little bank account.
There was also an evolution of the building with Bob’s TV and Appliance in the lower level along with a baby shop and at one time a waterbed store. The loading dock once made it possible to bring in furniture for the family business.
Then development changed the landscape, access to the dock was lost and the future of the building changed with it.
The property also has an unusual piece of Cold War-era history.
Parlow said the building was constructed with the idea that portions could serve as a bomb shelter, explaining the massive concrete construction and concrete floors.
For a building that eventually became a place where people wandered in looking for an antique dresser, vintage lamp or piece of furniture, that is quite a history.
But the furniture business is where the Hochrein family really made its mark.
Parlow’s father began as a furniture salesman, traveling throughout the Chicago and Milwaukee areas selling lamps and tables.
He built up a successful line, only to have the owner eventually hand the business to a nephew.
Her father was suddenly without the line he had worked so hard to establish.
So he made a decision.
He still owned the family property in West Bend, which at the time was being used as a duplex. He told the family they would put both homes on the market.
“Whichever one sells first, we’re going to either stay in the house or move and I’m going to open up a furniture store,” Parlow recalled.
It was 1970.
The West Bend house won the coin toss.
The family moved back to West Bend, and her father opened a furniture store downtown, renting a storefront from B.C. Ziegler.
Then came the furniture. Lots of furniture. Her father had a creative solution.
“He had so much space left, he’d open up all the hide-a-beds to take up the space,” Parlow said.
That was the beginning of Family Furniture.
Years later, Parlow would find herself working in that same furniture world, eventually running Value Furniture in the building her father owned.
She developed a following because customers could find quality furniture at lower prices than some of the higher-end stores.
But another idea had been quietly growing in the back of her mind.
A consignment store.
The name wasn’t the product of a marketing meeting. It came to Parlow in the middle of the night.
When access to the building’s loading dock was lost, the operation of a traditional furniture store became much more difficult.
That was the push she needed.
“I said, I’m going to turn it over to consignment like I’ve always wanted to do,” she said.
Then came the name.
Parlow had been talking with her brother-in-law about the idea when she remembered her grandmother’s reaction to the concept of selling other people’s old things. Parlow went to bed and sometime during the night, the idea clicked.
“I woke up in the middle of the night and I was thinking of him saying that,” she recalled. “I said, no, I’m going to cherry pick it.”
And just like that, the name was born.
The doors opened in 2008.
For the next 18 years, the building would become a place where one person’s unwanted treasure could become another person’s perfect find.
If there is one thing a consignment store guarantees, it is that you never know what is going to walk through the door.
Parlow has seen plenty.
One of the most memorable was a taxidermy raccoon sitting upright with a box of Cracker Jacks in its paws.
“I said, I have to take this. It’s funny,” she said.
Someone eventually bought it. Parlow couldn’t resist asking what the buyer planned to do with it. The answer was unforgettable.
He had a nosy mother-in-law who liked to go through the bathroom cabinets. So he planned to tuck the raccoon inside one.
Then there was the antique vanity.
A customer brought in a beautiful, hand-painted antique piece and explained there was a matching headboard and bed.
Just one small problem. “It has a poltergeist in it,” the customer said.
Parlow passed.
And then there is Cherry.
Cherry is a doll.
Not necessarily a beautiful doll, Parlow admits, but definitely a memorable one.
Two regular consignors brought her in. One of the men had owned a cherry-red Mustang convertible, and the doll had ridden shotgun.
When he sold the Mustang, he decided Cherry belonged at Cherry Pickins’.
Cherry never sold. So she remains behind the counter, one of the store’s unofficial mascots.
For Parlow, the real treasures were never necessarily the most expensive pieces.
It was the people.
Over 18 years, customers became familiar faces. Consignors trusted her with their belongings. Shoppers came back because they never knew what they might find.
Parlow owns the building, so Cherry Pickins’ isn’t disappearing from the property.
She is working with someone interested in renting the space, although she isn’t ready to reveal details because nothing is finalized.
The new tenant could mean the building remains in retail use.
For now, Parlow’s focus is simply getting through the remaining inventory. Her goal is to be finished around the end of the farmers market season, although the exact timing depends on how quickly the merchandise sells and what happens with the potential tenant.
Wow! Judy you always come up with a warm and wonderful story and this one brings back memories. Thank you for all your efforts.
I noticed that the chimney near the back of the building is a hexagonal shape. That seems unusual.