Hallmark store customers should be seeing the card racks fill up and other new items come in this week. A deal to stay in the Vernon Park Mall another year with options to continue has been sealed.
“We were basically going to leave the mall,” said Gary Ashworth, who co-owns 15 Lynn’s and Daphne’s Hallmark stores with his parents, Ralph and Daphne Ashworth.
Mike Ingalls, the mall’s property manager, said he and the Ashworths signed a lease agreement Thursday. The contract begins April 1.
“We were able to come to a lease agreement,” he said, “that is mutually beneficial to the mall, as well as to Hallmark. And I’m glad we were able to do it.”
Ashworth said one reason the store is staying open is because the mall is working to get new tenants.
Ingalls said he is negotiating with a restaurant and a 50,000-square-foot anchor store, and there is a second restaurant possibility.
Hard economic times is the main reason Ashworth said his three-generation family, including his two sons, was planning to close the store.
There was a steady stream of customers coming into the Kinston store Monday. One of them was Kay Wade of Snow Hill, who had purchased greeting cards.
Wade said she chooses to shop in Kinston if she can’t find what she needs in Snow Hill, and she also likes the friendly merchandisers at the Hallmark store.
“I come here because it’s easy access,” she said. “I don’t have to deal with all the traffic like you do in Greenville.”
She used to go frequently with her daughter, the late Frannie Wade, a former head librarian at the Greene County Library and collector of Christmas ornaments.
“When we came to the mall,” she said about her and daughter, “we never left the mall without stopping at Hallmark.”
Carolyn Griffin of Dover had just purchased some cards with her husband.
“We know we’re going to find what we’re looking for when we come,” Griffin said was the reason the couple shops at the Kinston Hallmark. “We buy all our special cards here.”
Griffin said she didn’t know what she would have done if the store had closed. She enjoys the “good selection” and “friendly” service.
Store Manager Carolyn Harrell said she was given the OK to tell the customers the store would be closing. The customers were so upset — some even cried — they phoned the headquarters in Cary and posted comments on the company’s Facebook page.
“It’s our customers,” Harrell said. “We give it all to our customers because if it wasn’t because of them, we wouldn’t be here.”
The Kinston store, the first Hallmark store Gary Ashworth’s parents bought in 1969, ranks the highest of the 15 stores in customer service — more than 90 percent, Ashworth said. The chain’s average is about 10 percent less.
“Because they give such good customer service,” Ashworth said, “they’re the reason we were able to stay open.”
The store personnel greet customers and know them by name, Harrell said. They keep a special request book and personally call the customers when the item comes in or is on sale. They will call other Hallmark stores or the manufacturer to locate items for customers.
“It’s because we care about our customers,” Jessica Muzychka, assistant manager, said. “… We try to make our customers feel like home.”
The store carries a large line of greeting cards, Yankee candles, Vera Bradley bags, ornaments, stationary and gifts. They also offer a points reward card for purchases.
Margaret Fisher can be reached at 252-559-1082 or Margaret.Fisher@Kinston.com. Follow her on Twitter @MargaretFishr.