thousand businesses in belmont it's no wonder we don't have time to stop and take a closer look or let us do it for you at merchants corner or drop in on frankie chili a catch of the day and see what's cooking at the other end of town w merchants and the retailers to excel in the business today we're going to take a couple of trips to visit a couple of merchants that we're going to special on the show one is a person who's been providing all kinds of fish personalties and delicacies his clients and everybody has spoken very highly of catch of the day secondly will visit ernie and barbara henderson who are carrying on single handedly an old american tradition the five and dime so put up your feet relax over the past ten years the massachusetts fishing industry has gone through drastic changes today to survive as a fish merchant you have to be a merchant you have to be a vendor you have to be a retailer you have to be a cook you have to be an entrepreneur today we're going to visit  well when i first put the chowder on it six o'clock people already lined in front of the door and everyone's standing over the occasionally waiting for that impatient giving away the snow out here to become a tradition giving away the chowder we make about ten gallons of clam chowder every year during the christmas tree lighting celebrat well i just think it's a good thing to do i think it's it's nice to give back to the community after all these years of being in business is just a nice way to say thank you fish makes a nice color contrast so over a period of time over the years to get the hang of it to make it look appetizing and apparently it was the reader's opinion poll and my ch place i make about a thousand points of chowder every two weeks over the years customers they really become your extended family and you enjoy seeing them and they appreciate what you do i think service is so important you can be i see people like many of us from a certain age group remember the neighborhood staple the five and dime well with the advent of shopping malls and superstores the five and dime sometimes looks today like an endangered species we're going to talk today to ernie and barbara henderson were going to prove to us that the demise of the neighborhood store the american five and dime is this fast they're alive and well and doing great in christian square next time merchants c hour i see some interest in the fact that five other times they're still exist but i think it's more from the styles of point of view people so i remember shopping and when i was a kid in a five and ten and i kind of thing a lot of people miss and candies and and cards and so forth that's compete directly with the variety stores because of the niche market that we have here and the density of people in the area and also the fact of the store's been here a long time people know of it allows us to survive in this this environment my background in the retail business was i was a sales representative felling felt flowers i called on a lot of the ben franklins toys off of new england and my wife and i both were sales people and on the road and in different cities and all that type of thing which was a fun business for a long time but then this this appeal to us in terms of settling down a little bit being that close of the call home for us arnie working for the van franklin corporation of course you know a lot of the ben franklin and when he decided that it was time for him to get off the road t he was with the ben franklin corporate thing for about twenty years and he was looking for an opportunity to get back into the retail business we bought the store from callan paul went to sell paul had on the hardware store interpol rolled in he and his wife bought the  ben franklin store from mr kingston who was here for thirty five years i wanted to rearrange the store i divided the store and threw it to sections basically turned all the counties on of an angle i did it really for the purpose of displaying items better and for security reasons i thought i could see people in the aisles better than mr henderson actually refix of the whole store meaning the barn and all new counters and his kind of are higher than the ones i had so was able to get more merchandise so he's actually growing the business significantly since when i sold it and that was very important to me to find someone who would maintain that business and make it grow he seemed to be the perfect person for the job and convinced me that he and his wife would be the perfect people around it and i believe that than you even if you do as a manager because then you know you spend your psychiatrist sell doing a lot of things that if you were the store manager you might hire someone else to do but you end up doing all those things yourself we inherited the stuff that's in the store or we just have some outstanding people to spend here for you know for for quite a while i think you're thirty years everybody here it's almost the same house  family orientated store everybody knows everybody the girls that work here for the most part have known each other for years you know i think because we each give so much you know we're just like civil and just want to do it you know she has a knack for the business that's just outstanding my position is i'm tired and merchandise there at the store i started here in high school or to high school for three or four years starting probably ninth grade when i was sixteen years old i enjoy seeing people i enjoy buying new things and just you know creating a defined atmosphere for the shoppers bernie gives me a feeling you know i look through the crack magazines and you know different catalogs that come in the mail you know five or six a day and you know if i see something new that strikes my fancy i don't have someone second guessing me all the time so that's a nice opportunity as an independent is very much complicated because we do business with seventy or eighty vendors where as you know a typical change store environment like a wal mart or something like that they don't shop all over the place trying to find particular items or what their customers are looking for and i kind of thing so we've we've got a lot of merchandise in our store more in dollars than then you'd see in a lot of stores and condensed into a you know small square footage area we had to in as he does source everything out we had to find on the vendors and with his vast experience and knowledge of all those vendors it has really helped them i think to get a great product mix in the store ben franklin store offers a uniqueness that you don't front of other stores it offers a wide variety of merchandise if you can't find a ben franklins then you probably can't find it anywhere in that mix it's just a great mix of craft present standing in those you know big cold you know department stores at the malls it is a fun dismiss also because it's very diversified the seasons change all the time and and we shop for merchandise all over the place and the something new every day something going on different every day it is not just a one stop store you just don't go to that store you tend to shop in the area which is a huge advantage for the merchants here as ben franklin store they tend to come to that store they tend to then go out for lunch in the restaurants attend the shopping at the stores it really is a store that i think is very very necessary for the survival of christians graham and fortunately in this little town we have not allowed some of the real superstores in hoping that the business association was created to unite the various retail centers in belmont and to provide services and information to local merchants and businesses running the business is never easy you have to constantly deal with matters such as insurance visibility traffic flow to necessary evils of life as insurance for retail owners policies can be expensive and complicated as an organization the belmont business association can provide services through member companies to help you reduce your expense on group policies for disability long term care health a life insurance don't want residents constantly get mail as in coupon mail is in the mail and i don't know about you but how often do you use maybe one or two of the coupons and you throw the rest  away at the belmont business association have taken a hard look at this marketing strategy and we've decided to come up with the belmont coupon program for our merchants and retailers where i when we send out a mailer you've got to be able to use most of the coupons at all the different stores and sun is throughout the different status of town now isn't that advantage the point of the belmont business association is that we're making traffic for you there are several promotions and events that the b b a is planning to sponsor that will increase traffic flow and visibility to the belmont area and can increase your sales and visibility as a belmont business if you would like to become a member of the b b s or would like some more information facts or write us at belmont business association post office parks one five seven belmont  to four seven eight the fax number is six one seven four eight nine two nine seven seven again that's belmont business association post office box one five seven belmont over two four seven eight or fax us at six one seven four eight nine two nine seven seven a future programs will go into little bit more detail about specific benefits of belonging to the b b a please join us next time and merchants con we'll have some brand new features and of course take a look at more businesses and the people behind m character ari thank you for grade when i was sixteen years old i was gone for two years and back for twelve years man thing no laughing in the back