After 29 years, Golden Pineapple owner Barbara Ximnoch retires
Barbara Ximnoch always knew that she wanted to open her own store. So when the Great Falls Village Center opened up almost 29 years ago, she took the jump and leased a space.
“I always wanted to have a gift shop, so the Village Center opened and, voila, I was here,” said Ximnoch, 67, owner of the Golden Pineapple.
Ximnoch was not deterred by the fact that she was a woman entrepreneur with no prior business experience.
“I just went headlong into it,” she said. “You get ideas, you think you can do it and you go for it.”
Last month, after nearly three decades, Ximnoch decided to close shop and retire. Over the years, the Golden Pineapple became somewhat of a community institution — particularly among local women.”This is where the women chatted all day long,” said Ximnoch, who has lived in Great Falls for 30 years. “You name it, we talked about it.”
“It was a ladies’ ‘Cheers,'” said Marni Thomason, one of three women who own the gift shop A Special Touch, which has taken over the Golden Pineapple space.
Thomason, Cathy Moran and Kim Garten originally opened A Special Touch in a section of the Great Falls Village Center store A Silk Purse on Feb. 13, 2007. Although the three friends had only planned on running a part-time business in a small space, the operation quickly outgrew their initial vision. So when Thomason, Moran and Garten found out that Barbara Ximnoch planned to retire, they knew instantly that they had found their new home — and for Ximnoch, it was a relief to know that she would be leaving her space in good hands.
