CLOSING TIME
Two more longtime downtown businesses plan to shut doors
Two more downtown businesses with a combined 65 years on High Street — Mosteller’s Seafood and Pottstown Florist — will be shut down by the end of the month, The Mercury has confirmed.
The news comes on the heels the recent announcement that Weitzenkorn’s men’s clothing store, located in Pottstown for 155 years, will close its High Street location this spring and move to a smaller building in Phoenixville.
The closing of Mosteller’s and Pottstown Florist come as new owners take over the Pottstown Farmer’s Market, which was purchased on Jan. 23 for $200,000 by JAM Takeover LLC, according to Montgomery County property records.
According to Adam Sager, attorney for the new owners, and the owners of both businesses, the closings come about largely due to the fact that the parties could not agree on a new lease.
“It was 22 pages long and I was advised not to sign it,” said Kathy Reifke, who has worked in Pottstown Florist since 1977 and has been its owner since 1988.
She said she was uncomfortable with clauses in the new lease about responsibilities outside the area she was leasing.
Reifke said her sign on
the front of the Farmer’s Market was taken down last fall by the previous owners to accommodate some maintenance work and not replaced for several months, which is why she withheld rent for several months.
An eviction notice was
pasted on the front door and she appeared before a district judge and settled the matter, Sager confirmed.
Mosteller’s was three months behind on its rent, and brought before a district judge after a notice was
pasted on the door, and the matter was settled there, Sager said.
Complicating matters for Mosteller’s is the year-long illness of owner Roseann Mosteller, said her sister, Mary Weller, who has been running the business while her sister is in the hospital.
Hospital bills as well as the business bills were piling up and although Weller said the business is solvent and did well over the holidays, she did not want to sign a new lease while her sister is in the hospital.
The store was founded in 1958 in Phoenixville by her late father Herber, who died in 2007. He moved the business to Pottstown at a different location on High Street and it was moved into the Farmer’s Market space along South Charlotte Street in 1994 where Weller’s sister Roseann has been running it for many years.
“We’ve been telling the customers we’re closing and they are not happy,” said Weller. “One customer started crying and they wanted to know if we’re going to open somewhere else, but I really don’t have an answer,” Weller said.
Reifke said she is not ready to retire yet, but does not expect to try to move her businesses to a new location.
“It’s not the business it was. It’s not fun any more,” Reifke said. “I’ll get another job I suppose, but first I need some time off.”
Reifke said she will be around for one more Valentine’s Day rush. “I’m hoping for a lot of walk-ins,” she said.
In the meantime, she is also trying to prepare to close.
“It’s not easy to get rid of everything in a month when you’ve been in one place as long as I have,” she said.
Sager said he believes the new owners hope to find a new florist to occupy the space Reifke will be vacating.
Other new businesses are also planned for the Farmer’s Market space, he said.