Sander's True Value store in Cape to close

Ask John Sander why he's closing the Cape Girardeau True Value hardware store his father started 27 years ago and he'll sigh and say: "It's a sign of the times."

Of course, it's more complicated than that. It always is. There are personal factors that Sander doesn't want aired in public --nothing scandalous, just private -- and I'll respect that.

But mainly it was the sign of the times. Sander watched as Central Hardware came in. He weathered that. Then Buchheit's. Then Lowe's. Then Ace. That's some stiff competition.

"I'd just be getting over the cycle when another one would come," he said last week. "I even thought we were going to recover last year. I was up 3.5 percent over the first nine months."

Then the fourth quarter hit. Hard.

"It was like a big snowball, things got bad and we could not recover from it," Sander said. "And January has not been any better."

He began thinking about closing the store in December, but his employees kept talking him out of it. Things will pick up, they said. They always do, they said.

But they didn't. He tried getting the bank to refinance. Rather than just close it, he tried selling it. No and no.

As he saw it, that only left him with one option.

"It was very tough to come to this conclusion," he said. "I finally had to say, 'No, this just isn't going to work.' Yeah, it was tough."

It must have been. William K. Sander, started the hardware store in Cape Girardeau in 1976, when John was 19. John went to work for his father right away. It's really all he's ever done.

"We sold work," he said. "I hate to put it that way, but we tried to sell products to make your job easier. We tried to help people when they needed assistance working on a project at home."

Long-time customers are surely going to be upset to see the going-out-of-business sale at Town Plaza. Liquidation starts this week, and Sander said he expects to be out of the store in 60 days.

There are other places to pick up a box-end wrench or a dozen spiral threaded nails. But for hard-core do-it-yourself-ers, your hardware store's like your barber. You only have one.

But Sander said one of the worst things about closing is that he won't get to interact with the customers.

"I really want to thank them," he said. "They've been really loyal to us. It was a great opportunity to serve them. I appreciate all the business they gave to us. We always treated out customers with respect."

There will still be plenty of places to buy tools. But finding people who treat you with respect is getting harder and harder.

Wille's Bakery returning

Stopping at Wille's Bakery was a morning ritual when I was a seventh-grader on my way to Schultz School. My friend Billy and I would park our bikes outside 1001 Independence, race in and order us up each a baker's dozen of sugary doughnut holes.

Once, we even had a contest to see who could eat their doughnut holes the fastest. That race ended with a quick-thinking customer's interlocked fingers around my stomach and a discharged doughnut hole snailing down the display case.

Later, I'd heard Wille's had moved to Jackson, and I wasn't sure what happened after that.

Then, last week, I found out that Wille's Bakery was opening again in Cape Girardeau, this time at 1215 Broadway in the old Patrick's Cleaners Building. The store is expected to open in March.

Leonard Wille, now 73, operated the Cape Girardeau bakery from 1973 until 1985 before moving it to Jackson. This time, his son, Ralph Wille, who also has been a baker his whole life, is running the bakery and his father will be helping out.

"Since high school, I haven't done anything else," Wille said. "I learned it all from Dad. We're just a couple of old scratch bakers."

The new bakery will have a drive-through and the doughnuts will be made from scratch as well as danish and some cakes. Unlike the olden days, the new Wille's won't make wedding cakes or bread.

"We're going to have to streamline things a little more," Wille said. "We can't get as big as we once did. I just want to stay leaner."

There will also be milk and coffee.

Wille said he was glad to be getting back to Cape Girardeau.

"Cape was good to us," he said. "We did really well when we were there."

But I wouldn't recommend eating those doughnut holes too quickly.

Pretzels, clothes, vitamins

If you go to Auntie Anne's Web site, you can read how pretzels date back to 610 A.D., when an Italian monk decided to reward his students by serving them baked scraps of leftover bread. He called them "pretiolas," which means little rewards.

That's interesting, but for our purposes I'll fast-forward 1,393 years -- through the boring parts -- and tell you that Auntie Anne's Pretzels are coming to Westfield Shoppingtown West Park, according to mall manager Jim Govro.

The pretzels are hand-rolled, and the store will also sell dips and drinks. There are 750 locations worldwide, and the local one will be where the old Pretzel Time used to be. Bon Pretzel, which has been in that spot temporarily, is moving to where China Gate used to be.

C.J. Banks, a clothing store for plus-sized women, is also set to open soon where Trevors is located. Trevors is moving in the bigger space that used to be Jungle Gems. Musical chairs, anyone?

C.J. Banks sells casual clothes in sizes 14 and up. In 2002, C.J. Banks was formed as a division of Christopher & Banks and opened its first 20 stores in the Midwest. Based in Minneapolis, Minn., the company now operates 91 stores in 23 states.

Govro said that Vitamin World is coming to the mall. Vitamin World will have more than 850 vitamin and nutritional products at factory-direct prices. Also, hair, skin and personal care products are available. Vitamin World manufactures its own line of beauty-care and body-building supplements.

In a hodge-podge of other mall news, Govro said they are installing new family restrooms and a parenting room where women can go to breast-feed their children, both of which should be finished by June.

They are also putting in a Westfield Playtown -- that ought to be the name of the whole mall, actually. But it's really a play area for kids that features a a rubber floor and those climb-on molded rubber figures. That's going in next to Pasta House court and should be finished by Easter.

They are also about to asphalt half of the mall parking lot in April.

So no more potholes, right?

More Mac

David "Mac" McAllister has opened the second location of Mac's Smokehouse in the same mini-mall as Soap and Suds at 525 N. Silver Springs Road. He's still offering breakfast and lunch out at the airport, his first location. He's hired nine people to prepare and serve the mostly barbecue-related items, like pulled pork, Jamaican pork, pulled chicken, barbecue salads, chicken wings and cold beer. The restaurant seats 44 to 50 people.

He's made Ruth Missey as his restaurant manager out at the airport, while he gets the second Mac's off and running. (Barbecue does sound good about now, doesn't it?)

Quickly

The people who own the Albertsons building say they expect to make an announcement in the next 60 days. They wouldn't tell me more than that, but it sounded to me like they had something worked out. E-mail me your guesses (smoyers@semissourian.com), and if you get it right, I'll mention your name in Biz Buzz.

China Town, the new Chinese buffet restaurant, is scheduled to open in the next two weeks at the old Western Sizzlin' on Kingshighway. Its liquor license application goes before the city council tonight.

Scott Moyers is the business editor for the Southeast Missourian. Send your comments, business news, information or questions to Biz Buzz, 301 Broadway, Cape Girardeau, Mo., 63702-0699, e-mail smoyers@semissourian.com or call 335-6611, extension 137.