Saturday marked the final day in business for Merk and Tilley’s along the Lampasas downtown square.
Originally, owners Jo and John Williams planned to stay open through the Spring Ho Festival, but a busy Ladies Night on June 4 changed their plans.
“It blew us away! We didn’t anticipate selling that much inventory that night that fast,” Jo said. “We just don’t have anything left to put out, so we are closing early. We are very fortunate that the support is as good as it has been for us.”
Jo and John made the decision to open Merk & Tilley’s in 2019. Since then, the store has written its own story.
“We just decided to give it a shot,” Jo said. “We opened in just two rooms when we first started down here. After about six months, it expanded to the whole bottom floor, and after a year and a half expanded to the whole building – 7,000 square feet – which was amazing.”
Merk & Tilley’s started with just women’s clothing. After a few months, Jeanie Smith, who played an integral role in the store’s launch, returned to her career in education. With that void, John decided to step up to the plate to assist.
“I’m like, ‘If I’m going to be here, I need some men’s stuff.’ Then, we added some men’s stuff, and it just grew to the whole building,” he said. “The town just really embraced us, and we embraced them back.”
Before moving full time to the front checkout counter, John had been commuting back and forth to Austin for his sales jobs. Seven years later, he has no regrets about his decision to focus on the mercantile store.
“Best decision I could have ever made, to be honest,” he said. “Meeting the people in this town and the surrounding towns has been great. The store has been good to us.”
Before its first anniversary, Merk & Tilley’s was faced with its biggest challenge: the COVID-19 pandemic. With shoppers unable to visit inside, John and Jo took window shopping to the next level.
“We couldn’t spend too much time in the building because there was kind of a lockdown, but we were at least able to get in here and change things out,” John said. “We pushed everything to the front of the windows so people could peer in and look at it, and then we would just deliver. The town really supported us in that way.”
Despite that big bump in the road, the Williams couple have enjoyed many wholesome moments in business. Few top the quarterly “Ladies Night on the Square” that was a store staple for the last seven years. Not only did the special emphasis help Merk & Tilley’s grow, but it attracted more attention to other businesses on the square.
Also, John and Jo didn’t shy away from bringing a bit of Black Friday craze to downtown Lampasas with store’s annual Pajama Party from midnight until 2 a.m. The response far exceeded John’s expectations.
“I thought it was just going to be a tanker,” he said of the Black Friday promotion. “We showed up at 11 p.m., looked out the window at five minutes until midnight, and there was a line almost to Fourth Street. It was crazy. We did huge amounts of sales, auctions and giveaways.”
The couple are thankful for all the support the business has received the last seven years.
“Not only local support, which has been amazing, but all the towns around,” John said of customer traffic. “We probably had 60% local and 40% out of town support the whole time we have been open. Anytime we have had an event, we have had major support.”
Although John and Jo will miss their customers, it is time for the pair to move on to the next chapter of their lives.
“We were ready to get our weekends back and holidays back with our family,” Jo said. “That is why we are getting out now, is to do that.
“I’m going to be a full-time grandma and spend some time with my mom,” she said. “My dad passed away last year, so I want to do that. John is going into real estate, so he will be around and local still. We love our home out here, so we are not going anywhere.”
The building at 402 S. Live Oak St. has been in Jo’s family for over 25 years.
With so many memories etched in its limestone bricks, the Williamses want to ensure its future is safe, whoever the building is leased or sold to. Whether it stays a retail shop or becomes a restaurant once again, the couple believe its future is bright.
“It’s not always a bad thing when something closes,” Jo said. “It’s always sad, of course, because the town loses something that it needs. But you’ll see in another six months to a year, something else will pop up, and we will be a memory, and somebody else will bring something fun when that happens.”
