Longtime Zion Antique Mall closes as owners retire
After 37 years in business, a mainstay of Zion’s downtown business landscape closed its doors Wednesday.
The remaining contents of the Zion Antique Mall will be packed up and gone by the end of the month, when its lease expires, as the shop’s owners pursue their retirement plans.
Don Bordeau, 88, and his wife, Sharon, 81, are lifelong city residents and have operated the 8,500-squarefoot, two-level store at 2754 Sheridan Road, which began as an outgrowth of a garage sale. Collecting and learning the trade had a learning curve, they said, while raising family members who played in the aisles.
“After more than three decades in the business, you learn what’s valuable and what’s not,” Don Bordeau said. “I was nuts. That’s what prompted me to get into furniture refinishing with distressed pieces, then sell them.
“Over a period of time, our garage sales ran upwards of 3,000 items, and that was 50 years ago,” he said. “We decided to either get in or out of the business. We went ahead, even though we had a 2-year-old daughter.”
His wife added, “Her name is Emily, and she would copy people that came into the store. If it was an old man with a cane, she would get a cane and walk around after him.
“She later got into a gymnastics class, and didn’t want to be in the annual Jubilee Days parade,” she said. “But they would put out a mat on the street and she’d turn handsprings, and she loved when they clapped. It’s a shame those parades and celebrations sort of petered out.”
Sharon Bordeau also noted that her husband likes to be the boss, and not be bossed around. His merchandise acquisitions for the store brought a high
level of nostalgia, even to people casually stopping by.
Their inventory of vintage furniture, all manner of recorded historic phonograph records including Edison discs, Depression-era and carnival glass, china, pottery, electric trains, books, oil paintings and things tucked away in corners, always had something to catch the eye.
“We still have a lot of merchandise, so I’ll probably be spending the first year selling what we have,” he said. “After that, I don’t know. Hopefully, I can relax. I’m 88 years old and don’t know how many years I have to go. It would be nice doing something we want.”
The Bordeaus have a long history with the community, and are well-known around town. Don’s mother, Pearl LaBelle, was the first baby girl born in Zion, after the city was incorporated in 1902. He noted that his lineage can be traced to one of the five LaBelle families in the city set up by founder, Dr. John Dowie, as a Utopian community.
The store site itself was
originally the Cloud Nine Beauty Salon, and holds its own memories connected to the adjacent fine ladies’ apparel store.
“It was for weddings, special occasions,” Sharon Bordeau said. “They had a fountain in the center, with a big wraparound sofa. The first year I was married, my sister-in-law took me to this annual sale at the apparel shop next door. Women were so anxious to get clothes cheap, they were changing in the aisles (and) filled the dressing rooms. Funniest thing I’ve ever seen.”
Their own store moved from 27th Street into what was once the beauty salon, and the adventure began. The store’s closure was announced in October, and mark-down sales depleted many of the rare items.
As the couple packed up the merchandise that remained on the last day the store was open, Sharon Bordeau said, “We decided to close the shop because we’re so old. We deserve some time to do what we like, not what we have to do.”