Challenges of Balancing Two-State Retail Business Lead Iowa Big and Tall Clothier to Close Edina Store After Five Years

EDINA, Minn. – The challenges of balancing a two-state retail operation, even a successful one, have prompted the closing of an Edina men’s clothing store, which will sell its entire inventory as its owner focus their resources on their Iowa flagship and online business.

“Difficult challenges often lead to difficult decisions. They also create opportunities,” Mike Hensley, owner of Hensley’s Big and Tall Outfitters, said today. “We’ve had the Edina store for five years and it’s been very good for us. But, as we’re positioning our company for the future, we realized we had to make to make a difficult decision. As a result, we’ve decided to close the Edina store.”

The store’s inventory sale opens to the public on Thursday. Hensley’s, located at 3535 W. 70th St. in the Brandon Square Shopping Center, Edina, will be open 9:00 a.m. to 8:00 p.m. weekdays, 9:00 a.m. to 4:00 p.m. Saturday, and noon to 4:00 p.m. Sunday during the sale.

“This is really a different situation than the usual store closing,” Hensley said. “We opened the Edina store to grow our business and it did exactly that. We were able to develop our own private label clothes to go along with all our brand names and we wouldn’t have been able to do that without the Minnesota store. But, there were a couple challenges with finding the right balance of store size and expenses as well as staffing that have led us to this decision.”

He added, “We couldn’t get where we thought we needed to be in Edina, but who knows. Maybe someday we’ll go back (to the Minneapolis market),” Hensley said. “There are a lot of possibilities, but the number have to add up.”

Hensley said he and his partners — wife Kelly, brother David and sister-in-law Laura — will put all of their focus on their new Urbandale, Iowa superstore and the company’s online sales.

“The reason we opened the Edina store was because we had a lot of people from Minneapolis and Minnesota coming to Des Moines. We’re very thankful to our customers and all the friends we’ve made in the Twin Cities through Edina store, and we hope to keep in contact with them through our new Iowa store and online.”

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