Half-Moon History
1990 - Beezer works at The Trail Shop in Chapel Hill, NC as a clerk to make a little dough during school, and as a good way to meet the "cool" girls. Generally considered by the store manager to be the most unmotivated hire in company history
Winter/Spring 1991 - St. John USVI - Beezer writes a business plan on Pretlow's computer in the back office of Big Planet as a device to stay out of bars. Pretlow mails the business plan to a friend at Patagonia: Paul Marsh. Miraculously they support the idea of letting Beezer open a store in downtown Charleston.
September 15, 1992 - Beezer makes one fundraising phone call to rich uncle Jim and asks if he wants to be a 1/10 owner of the future Half-Moon Outfitters for $100,000. Uncle Jim says "thank you, no - but I will take 25% for $40,000." Beezer says, "great, thanks."
February 13, 1993 - Half Moon Outfitters opens in downtown Charleston - store 1. Pretlow and Beezer go to Banana Republic and lure away their best and prettiest sales person - Kit. Southeast Wildlife Expo kicks off a week later and it is off to the races for store 1.
September 1993 - Beezer receives extended eye contact from the Man in Black at a Highwaymen concert in Central Park.
October 1994 - The Greenville, SC store opens - store 2. Lame location, poorly executed store. Beezer develops odd eye twitch. Meanwhile back at Store 1 - Blake doles out some "magic" chocolate chip cookies to unsuspecting co-coworkers and one oblivious customer. Kit and Katherine spend the rest of the day on the floor of the office excitedly discussing the world-saving qualities of ceiling tiles. Beezer covers the sales floor and waits on a call from the police. Eye twitch gets worse. Oddly, Blake gets promoted.
Summer 1995 - The Clemson store opens - ditto as above for location and execution. The only good news was that this store was an hour from the Chattooga River. So rather than putting his head in the sand, Beezer could put his head in the cool clear waters of the Five Falls.
Fall 1996 - Don gets hired as a consultant. Clemson gets shut down. Greenville moves - things get better.
Fall 1997 - The Mt Pleasant, SC store opens - store 3. It is tiny and smells like dead shrimp, but it is also successful.
February 2000 - Shop dog Marley passes to the great hereafter.
November 2002 - The first warehouse is purchased and the back room workers and all stored goods move there for central distribution. Don plays a trick on Warehouse Boys by leaving large road-killed raccoon on the loading dock with note and cig. hanging from the poor dead creature's mouth. The note reads "Rocky says - 'thou shalt count the tee shirts properly.'" The Warehouse Boys pack up the raccoon and ship it to Mt. Pleasant as if it were inventory. That joke doesn't go over that well - buzzards circle for days thereafter.
April 15, 2003 - The Columbia, SC store opens - store 4. Dad and Robert persuade Beezer to pull out the drop ceiling exposing beautiful barrel vault architecture - Good Call.
April 2005 - Jessica T. says, "Here take it - send the checks to this PO Box in Telluride - I am outta' here." And thus store 5 was adopted in Savannah, GA.
Dec 15, 2006 - The Half-Moon warehouse, offices, and internet store make the move to N. Charleston. This takes place one day before an employee ultimatum expired in which all warehouse employees were to walk out due to cramped working conditions.
January 27, 2007 - Outdoor Retailer trade show - Dean Potter, Chris Sharma, and that Bulgarian dude put the hard sell on Beezer, Sara, Don and Brian to buy a demo climbing wall. The purchase is for a yet undesigned brand new store on the southwest side of Charleston. Beezer caves in and the signatures are still there on the climbing wall as proof.
May 17, 2007 - While on tour of the new facility, a dozen home-schooled 6th, 7th and 8th graders put Beezer and Polly to the test on Green Construction and what the acronym LEED stands for.
Spring/Summer/Fall 2008 - The strangest, most intense, but oddly pleasant store roll out in history. Athens, GA store opens - store 6 - in February. The Virginia Highlands area of Atlanta, GA store opens - store 7 - in April. In October, "El Ocho" - the papa of all Half-Moons - opens in the South Windermere shopping center in Charleston.
November 1, 2008 - The venerable Mayor Riley cuts the ribbon while Hank Futch croons and the kids run amuk at our first Grand Opening since 1995. One family, headed for dinner elsewhere spots the buffet spread and throwing elbows, fights for the pork trifecta every time a new one emerges from the oak oven. It almost comes to blows as Hugh and Justin attempt to bounce the hippy vagrants. Wachovia, Half-Moon's bank, flirts with insolvency and everyone is pretty weirded out that Christmas season - but Santa always arrives. That climbing wall was a hit.
|