Dallasan Cards and Gifts will close June 30. (Photo by Emily Charrier)
Dallasan Cards and Gifts is a business that has been around the neighborhood in some iteration for 53 years, but it will shutter all operations this June.
“I’m not closing because I want to but because the face of retail has forever changed,” says Chuck West, a Lake Highlands dad who has owned the shop since 1999, back when it was Dallasan Hallmark. “Millennials and those younger crowds simply don’t buy traditional greeting cards. I can get mad about it, I can stomp my feet, but I can’t do anything to change that.”
Like the death of video stores and record shops, it’s a sign of the times. West isn’t happy about the closure, he has six employees and a slew of customers he’d love to keep serving. But the economic reality is what it is.
“My wife is a CPA and she sat me down and told me to get out of my emotional bubble and look at it from a purely financial perspective,” West says, a bit defeated. “I held on for as long as he could. I feel like I failed the community. That’s just how men think.”
He added it has nothing to do with rent hikes, his landlords at Casa Linda Plaza have been fair and supportive in any efforts to keep his 6,000-foot-store open. But it will close June 30.
The Dallasan name can be traced back to 1964, when Dallasan Record Shop drew in crowds with its listening booths and selection of 45s (check out this old-timey newspaper clip listing the store’s top 10 hits).
Dallasan Cards and Gifts will close June 30. (Photo by Emily Charrier)
“Something changed because at some point he started selling more greeting cards than records,” West says, adding that when he took over the business, some client records were kept on Dallasan Record Shop-logoed pages.
In the 1970s, it officially became Dallasan Hallmark Shop, selling greeting cards and collectible gift items along with candles, chocolates and other trinkets.
“I think I’m the third owner,” says West. “Retail was great back then. I bought my shop in the midst of the Beanie Baby craze and if you didn’t make money at that point, you were doing something wrong.”
Then came 9/11, which decimated retail sales. It was followed by the Great Recession in a time when fewer people were buying greeting cards and related items.
“Baby boomers are the sentimental generation. When someone they know gets sick, they send them a card,” West says. “Millennials simply don’t do that. They don’t send paper invitations or thank you notes, either. Everything is online. Their lives are totally driven by their handheld device.”
He used to own Hallmark stores all around the Metroplex, but this is his last hold out, the one he has had the most trouble letting go. He parted ways with the Hallmark brand in 2014, at which point he resurrected the Dallasan name “because everyone in this neighborhood knows it.” But despite the brand recognition, the older customers were not being replaced by a younger crowd. He points out that the Monica’s Hallmark on Mockingbird closed for similar reasons last year.
“It’s beyond repair, there’s nothing we can do to fix this,” he says. “It’s going to be tougher and tougher for brick and mortar to survive.”
When his lease came up in May, he knew it was time to close up the shop. It’ll maintain normal business hours through June 30 as he liquidates inventory (expect deep discounts after Mother’s Day). He’s not sure what would fill the Casa Linda space across from the Alligator Cafe, except that it’s unlikely to be a restaurant due to parking limitations.
He’s equally murky about his own professional future. The father of four has two kids in college and one who’s a freshman at Lake Highlands High School. “I’ve been a self-employed retailer since I was 28,” he sighs. “I’m not sure what the next step for me is right now.”
