Elizabeth McHugh has one request.
“Don’t make me cry,” she says.
For 33 years, McHugh has been greeting customers at The Hide House with a smile. She loved meeting them, both local residents and those who travelled an hour or more to shop at the store.
“There was never a day I didn’t want to come to work,” she said.
McHugh is still smiling, but with the appearance of someone putting on a brave face after employees were told this week that the store will be closing following a liquidation sale over the coming weeks.
“We kind of had a gut feeling,” the Acton resident said. “But you do what you can for the place. It’s really the end of an era. It’s hard for the staff, but it’s really going to hurt the town.”
Mention the name Acton to almost anyone in Ontario and you will inevitably be asked, ‘Is it worth the drive?’
Steve Dawkins, whose family owned the store, created the advertising slogan ‘It’s worth the drive to Acton’ that put the town on the map in the 1980s. At its peak, it was estimated that The Olde Hide House, as it was originally known, drew 300,000 people to town every year.
“It feels kind of sad that it’s closing,” said Kathy Burnett of Guelph, who has been buying coats at The Hide House for almost 30 years. “It’s been such a well-known institution through the years.”
There was a sentimental attachment for many of the shoppers on Friday, the first day of the liquidation sale.
Rockwood’s Tom Koperdraad has been coming to The Hide House for 40 years and remembers the days when it was more than just a clothing and furniture store.
“We used to come here for the restaurant,” he said. “We would have family get-togethers here every year for Easter.”
“The response has been overwhelming. Everyone has a history,” said Alex Hennick of A.D. Hennick & Associates, which is working with owner Danbury Global Ltd. on liquidating the inventory. “It’s a great opportunity to get premium quality items that just aren’t available any more. And it’s a chance for people who want to come in one last time.”
Within half an hour of opening Friday, there were already 30 people in line at the cash register, with dozens more browsing through coats and couches. Hennick said the store will remain open until the $5 million worth of inventory is sold.
McHugh said longtime customers have been coming in since the announcement to get multiples of favourite items like specific brands of gloves and slippers that aren’t available elsewhere.
However, Hennick said less demand for leather products as younger consumers shift to other alternatives played a role in the closure.
Barb Carscadden, who lived just outside of Acton and now lives in Rockwood, has been shopping at The Hide House for 30 years. She said even though the store has been getting smaller over the years, it still came as somewhat of a surprise.
“It is disappointing. It was one of the reasons people came to Acton,” she said, remembering that there used to be a play area for children. “It was a fun place to visit. It was an outing when you came here.”
McHugh said when the Dawkins family owned the store, employees felt like part of their family.
The store also strove to integrate itself into the town, with historical displays about the tanning industry that served as Acton's foundation and others honouring local veterans and their service in the war.
McHugh has fond memories of the store’s heyday.
“You could stand at the top of the stairs and look and it was wall to wall people, just a sea of people. And it’s not going to be here anymore,” she said. “It’s going to be heartbreaking to see it sitting here empty.”
