(Editor’s note: The story has been changed to reflect that the name of the remaining Bocage Village jeweler is Jules Madere Creative Jewelers.)
Longtime local retailer Classic Jewelers is closing its store in the Bocage Village Shopping Center after nearly 30 years in business.
Shopping center manager Mitch Richardson says he was notified earlier this summer by the store’s owners, sisters Carol Himel and Linda Himel, that they would be closing because they’re ready to retire and get out of the business.
“They did real well for a long time,” Richardson says. “But I think they are just ready to move on and do something different with their lives. There were no hard feelings.”
Richardson is in talks with several potential replacements for Classic Jewelers, which has several years remaining on its lease. He says another jewelry store is not among them. Bocage Village already has another jeweler—longtime tenant Jules Madere Creative Jewelers—and Richardson says it wouldn’t be fair to bring in a new competitor.
“Some things have surfaced that are really interesting and that could be the answer to their situation and allow us to have some continuity,” he says.
The Classic Jewelers departure is the latest of several at Bocage Village, which lost several tenants in 2017 and was without one its most popular restaurants—Dearman’s—for nearly two years. The diner was shut down from March 2016 until this past April, following a late-night fire.
In recent months, however, the shopping center has replaced the vacancies with new tenants, including a Big Squeezy location and a boutique, and Dearman’s has reopened, drawing consistently large lunchtime crowds.
“There is still a lot of demand for this center,” says Richardson of the nearly 40-year-old Bocage Village. “People want to be in Bocage.”
Classic Jewelers is currently in the process of liquidating its inventory, which includes antique jewelry and reproduction pieces. It will remain open through the end of August, unless it sells out before then, a store clerk says.
