Elliott’s Boots steps it up in ‘new’ Station West locale
Elliott’s Boots Shoes Sandals employee Brandy Nyberg, right, helps a customer find just the right fit during the business’ Grand Re-Opening Saturday, May 4.
Its brightly lighted 6,000-square foot facility was filled with customers who enjoyed the shop’s vast inventory, visits from brand vendors, free ice cream from Cruze Farm and the friendly atmosphere buyers have come to know since the Knoxville-based business opened the Farragut/West Knox County location.
In addition to an impressive interior boasting 20-foot ceilings, the store also has front opening garage doors that bring the outdoors inside, and vice versa.
This latter feature makes co-founder Jack Elliott “very proud.”
“I love it,” he said. “I saw those (at a store) in California, and knew I loved it and would do it for us one day.”
“The store is configured differently,” smanager Beth Hooks said. “It’s about the same size. The garage doors are nice, and you can see inside from the road. They are very inviting.”
The store fronts Campbell Station Road in Station West, giving it excellent visibility, which was a deciding factor when store owner Jack Elliott had to choose where to land when the development’s owner elected to raze the buildings and rebuild last year.
“We looked at moving into Turkey Creek,” Elliott said. “But we thought we might lose a lot of customers if we (did).”
Instead, Elliott’s temporarily relocated in a building behind the current site, relying on short-term signage to relay the message.
“I wanted to stay connected (to the original site),” he said. “We were able to explain (to our customers) what was going on, and I think we made a good
decision to stay here. We really are the gateway to Turkey Creek.”
The Farragut store is just one of nine for the company, which first opened in the home of Jack and his wife and co-founder Joyce in 1982, before moving to its first brick-and-mortar location on Western Avenue.
Jack said he drew on his own shoe-selling background to start the business.
“There are hundreds of shoe stores, but there was no one who specialized in boots, that was not a Western store,” Elliott said, adding the couple determined work boots and outdoor wear were very much needed. “It turned out we were right.”
The store’s expansive footwear options for the entire family offers hundreds of brands, including Teva, Keen, Carolina Timberland, Bates, Danner, Merrell, Ugg, Harley Davidson, Ariat, Caterpillar, Birkenstock, Carhartt and Chaco.
With the new store opening, Elliott sees it as being on track to possibly overtake the Western Avenue store’s No. 1 sales position.
“I’m so proud of this store,” he said.
It’s been a difficult year for Elliott personally, saying a cancer diagnosis had him fighting that battle, while his son and company president, John Elliott, took over the reigns of the business’s design and construction.
“All I did was lay in bed and take chemo, but my son did everything,” Elliott said, adding he was recently evaluated at Johns Hopkins University and pronounced “cancer free.”
His grandson, also named Jack, who was at the Grand Re-Opening celebration, said sharing his dad during the rebuild “was tough,” but “it’s finally open, and (my grandfather) is finally better.”
