Collierville gift shop to close after 45 years
Happi-stores launched national retail network
Happi-stores, a retail institution dating to 1975, will close in September after the pandemic and family deaths roiled the Collierville firm.
Richard and Carol Holley turned her passion for pottery into a gift shop chain that made them stand out long ago among Memphis entrepreneurs.
The closing comes after the pandemic scoured the Memphis economy, pushing the June jobless rate to 11.9% and forcing companies to adjust to the uncertain times.
Long before the unusual cornonavirus summer of 2020 set in, the Holleys had sold 41 franchise locations and oversaw a retail network that stretched from Corpus Christi, Texas, to Chicago to Panama City, Florida. Their son, Kyle, long a manager in the company, at one point started to earn a pilot's license in hopes he could operate an airplane and cut the Holley's extensive travel costs checking on the properties.
When they began, Richard Holley had been vice president for advertising at Union Planters National Bank reporting to six senior executives and longing for a simpler life. He told the Memphis bank's top executives he
was leaving. He recalled several laughed at him as if he were foolish to trade the big bank’s well-paid security for the uncharted life of a retail merchant. He resigned anyway.
“We’ve had a great life. I wouldn’t have it done it any differently. We were fortunate. We each had different talents,’’ he said of Carol, his wife of 60 years.
Years ago the franchises were sold. Only the one store remained to look after. Once located at Memphis’ Park Place Mall, then Carrefour on the Germantown line, the Holleys had finally settled in at Collierville’s Houston Levee Galleria, stocking apparel and gifts.
Then 2020 rolled up. Carol died. Kyle had been groomed to manage the firm, but his father said an abscessed tooth infected him. Kyle died.
Then the coronavirus pandemic arrived. Weary of the store’s demands, certain no buyer would step in at a time retail sales had declined, Holley decided to shut down rather than stay in business.
“The pandemic is still affecting us badly. People are shopping. They’re coming in to shop. But nobody likes shopping in a mask,” Holley said. “Looking back, I had offers to sell it to a number of entrepreneurs (years ago), but my wife and I were having more fun than a barrel of monkeys. Our whole family was involved. I wasn’t interested in selling. But I should have sold it.’’