Known Missouri Business Closing Its Doors
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By Mike Scott
A landmark business in northeast Missouri is shutting their doors.
Cook’s Mens Store, located on the east side of the square, in Memphis, announced this week that they would be closing after serving northeast Missouri, southern Iowa and western Illinois for 65 years.
John and Maxine Cook purchased the W.O. Slavin General Store on Prime Street in Downing in 1959. There were four other grocery stores in Downing at the time.
What made them want to get into the business?
“I don’t know,” said Maxine, emphatically.
“The thing that I remember Dad saying was that he wanted to specialize in something, and ended up owning a general store,” added daughter Joyce Cook.
John always worked several jobs, including selling cars and working on his parents’ farm, but when he unexpectedly lost his political job with the county, combined with having a new family and plenty of bills to pay, they took a leap of faith and purchased the store from the 83-year-old Slavin.
“We tried to rent a house, but there wasn’t a house available in Downing that had indoor plumbing and running water, and here I had two kids,” Maxine recounted. After they had agreed to rent a house, they were approached by someone else who had a house with running water, and they moved into it instead.
“I was supposed to help maybe two or three days a week,” she said with a chuckle.
“At that time, we were even open on Sunday. We quit that after a while and started hauling our western wear around on Sundays. At that time there was a horse show in every community, and that’s how we got our name. We were known for boots and hats,” she continued.
In 1965, they opened a store on the southeast side of the Memphis square, (the current Rotary building, which they still own). For a short time, they continued running both the Downing and Memphis stores, but eventually sold the Downing store.
In April of 1972, Cook’s Mens Store moved into their current location, and has featured a large inventory of men’s, women’s, boy’s and girl’s casual wear for decades. The store has enjoyed a wide client base.
“On Saturday night, people would come to Memphis to eat at Keith’s and shop at Cook’s,” Maxine said.
Those days, sadly, are in the past. Running a small business has becoming increasing challenging, especially with online competition. Suppliers have reduced their inventories and are less willing to work with small retailers.
Still, Cook’s survived by offering service that can’t be matched by online sellers. Maxine and John’s one-one-one customer service included fitting carefully clothing and footwear for all their customers.
After 65 years, the family has made the decision to close the store and retire, saying goodbye to their customers and friends.
Sixty five years in business is a long time, and is packed with good memories, with “people” being among the best.
“John was really a people person, and I like them too,” Maxine said.
One of John’s favorite things was selling a young person their first pair of boots. Oftentimes, he had sold their parents, grandparents and even great-grandparents their first boots.
“We still hear those stories from customers today,” said Joyce proudly.
Cook’s Mens Store’s Retirement-Store Closing sale began Thursday, June 6. Everything is priced to sell quickly and plenty of prizes will be given away. Joyce estimated it should take eight weeks or less.
“We have to thank all our customers,” said Maxine. “And there is no way we could have succeeded without the help of all our wonderful employees over the years.
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