Feb 19, 2008

Stationery store to close after seven years in the businessBy Brittney WongMedia.DailyNorthwestern.com

As Lloyd Allison, entered the store A La Card Inc. from the back room, two gray-haired customers looked up from their perusing.

“It’s so nice to see old friends,” he said. After a pause, he corrected himself: “I mean, friends of long standing.”

For the past seven years, A La Card Inc., 816 Church St., has been a place where regulars are known by name. But the store, nestled between The Rub and a bank on Church Street, will close Sunday due to “financial reasons,” said the owners, husband and wife Lloyd and Rita Allison

“We always said, ‘Next year will be the year it turns around,’ and it never happened,” Lloyd Allison said. “Once you’ve made the decision, everything else is easy. It’s reaching the decision that’s hard.”

The Allisons started the store in 2001 while they were also running a gift store in downtown Evanston called Mostly Handmade Incorporated. Rita Allison’s favorite part of the store was the section where they sold cards, which is what inspired the creation of A La Card Inc. Since then, the store has “lived through sewer construction, bridge construction and high-rise construction,” said Lloyd Allison.

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