Days away from retirement, Todd and Nona Jane Briggs remain busy helping customers select the perfect gift for a friend or a summer outfit at their downtown Lampasas shop, My Girls.
“Everything on the rack has a red tag, and that gives you the sale price, then you get another 40% off the price,” Nona Jane can be overheard telling a customer, a sign of her continued devotion to those who walk through the shop’s doors.
The couple are running a storewide sale as they prepare to bid farewell at a retirement party July 2 at My Girls. Now into their early 80s, Todd and Nona Jane know it is time to close this chapter.
“We’ve had friends and families through the last five to 10 years [asking], “When are you going to retire? When are you going to retire?’ ” Todd said. “And we’ve just decided now is the time.”
Todd, whose full name is David Todd Briggs V, said he likes to tell customers he has been on the courthouse square since 1900, and that he can “prove it.”
Although a cheeky joke, Briggs’ grandfather David Todd Briggs III, a Kempner native, returned to Lampasas in 1900 after graduating from business college. Shortly after arriving, the elder Briggs bought out H.M. Yates, who owned the current location of the Dispatch Record newspaper office, and he opened the men's clothing store Briggs-Carlisle.
In 1922, Lampasas Furniture Company and Briggs-Gamel Funeral Company launched from the same location. Eventually, the furniture store would shift to East Third Street in the 1930s and fill the space where My Girls is situated today. For more than 70 years, Todd and his family have called that 415 E. Third St. site home.
“I’ve been in this building since some time in the late ’40s,” he said. “As I would hang around with the delivery guys for Lampasas Furniture Company, I’d stand up in the seat of the pickup and go with them on deliveries and service calls.”
Todd said he and his wife would become owners of a furniture store that garnered attention from across the state. But with the price of oil dropping dramatically in the 1980s, business started to slow down. Lampasas Furniture closed its doors in 1990.
“People stopped traveling, people stopped buying, and we decided it was time to get out of the furniture business,” Todd said.
The space in the building would be leased to other businesses until 1998, when Nona Jane decided she wanted to have a small gift and antique shop for when she retired from her Austin-based job in 2000. Before taking up the whole floor space, My Girls started in a tiny section of the building.
“He had an artist who also had a framing studio, and by the time I’d find some place they’d move me,” Nona Jane said. “So, I painted those rocks on the floor so they couldn’t move me, and I had about 100 square feet. It has just grown from there.”
Customers fell in love with My Girls for its variety, with items ranging from antiques to women’s clothing. As My Girls grew in popularity, Nona Jane decided maybe customers might enjoy a bite to eat while they shopped.
“I was making cookies and coffee and giving them away, and somebody reported me to the Health Department,” she said. “And it made me so mad. I said, ‘You know, we really need a restaurant here or something here.’ I thought, ‘Shoot, I’ll make chicken salad.’ I told Todd if I sell 10 sandwiches a day, I’ll be happy, and that is where it started.”
The restaurant within the shop launched in 2001 and became known for its scrumptious chicken salad sandwiches and potato salad. With Medina's Mexican Restaurant the only other food option downtown, My Girls quickly became popular.
“People downtown needed a place to eat that was downtown instead of going up to Key Avenue,” Todd said. “There weren’t as many fast foods on Key Avenue either.”
In its heyday, the Briggses said they served up to 85 sandwiches during the lunch period. Todd added that My Girls became a popular lunch spot for Lampasas ISD staff, who would call in orders that would be hand-delivered.
“While people were eating here, I was delivering to all the school campuses,” he said.
The My Girls restaurant remained open until the April 2024 solar eclipse event, when Todd and Nona Jane shifted gears to focus solely on the retail side of the business. The couple will close the entire chapter of My Girls in the coming days.
“Mixed emotions,” Nona Jane said of their impending retirement. “We are going to miss it, but it’s time, and we are looking forward to this transition and having more leisure time.”
As small-business owners, isn’t easy to take much time away for vacations. Todd and Nona Jane are eager to go places they haven’t been before and spend time with grandchildren in Wyoming.
Although the building will still be owned by the Briggses, it soon will become the location of another popular Lampasas retail store, The Other Place. Nonetheless, Todd will maintain an office within the building and expects Nona Jane to stop by as well.
“We are going to stay active,” he said. “We won’t be down here every day. We could work in the yard, we could travel,” Todd said of their post-retirement options.
The couple look forward to seeing their customers at the special retirement celebration on Wednesday from 3-6 p.m. at My Girls.
“Over the years I’ve said, and my wife has said, we have the world’s greatest customers, and they are absolutely awesome,” Todd said.