Mar 27, 2009

Ingenuity keeps Wareham retail shop on topBy Pamela BerardSouthCoastToday.com

Wareham, MA — When a business experiences a certain degree of success, it would be easy to keep things “status quo” — especially in this troubled economy.

But the owners of Old Company Store aren’t about to abandon the ingenuity and creativity that has made their store a bit of an enchanted forest for weary shoppers for the past 15 years.

Shari Aussant, who opened the store 15 years ago and has run it with her sister, Cindi Assad von Kahle, and their mother, Sandra Assad, for most of that time, just reinvented the historic structure, which offers a combination of upscale and nostalgic gifts.

“In a month’s time, I turned my whole store into something different,” Aussant said.

Never a “country store kind of girl,” Aussant had kept the store looking like an upscale gift shop. Each of the seven different rooms that comprise the store (some original to the building, which is listed with the National Register of Historic Places), have a different feel, offering everything from pickles in a barrel to fine jewelry and original artwork.

The new look is retro — harkening back to a simpler time — the 50s.

“What we did was, we kept the products, but if you were a tourist in the 1950s, that’s the kind of feel you’d have if you walked into a shop,” Aussant said. “The hospitality is there, that old-style hospitality”¦we always had that, but it’s just amplified.”

The new look includes a 1950s diner table, an iJuke wafting nostalgic tunes into the store, Burma-Shave signs, and an old Coca-Cola cooler that offers ice-cold Coke in a classic bottle. Some of their items and photos are tongue-in-cheek and sassy, and will “make you smile,” said Aussant.

Because of the economy, “people are getting depressed and unhappy,” said von Kahle. “Yet, when you walk into our store, you really don’t feel that. People usually walk in and say it feels so good in there. Immediately, people relax.”

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