See what’s behind the closing of Kennewick’s Hallmark store after 40 years

And then there was one.

Crest Hallmark Gold Crown in Kennewick will close by early next week, leaving just one of the iconic greeting card and gift shops in business in the Tri-Cities.

Patrick Jilek, whose parents established a Hallmark foothold in the Tri-Cities in 1960s, said the Kennewick store is a casualty of competition from big box retailers and growing indifference among younger people to sending physical greeting cards.

“It breaks my heart to close the Kennewick location,” Jilek said.

The Kennewick store opened more than 40 years ago at Highlands Plaza. When the Albertsons grocery that once anchored that center moved, the Jilek family relocated across the street, to be next to Safeway at Kennewick Plaza. It has been a tenant there for 21 years.

Jilek began a going-out-of-business sale in December and said he will likely close the doors early next week when the inventory is exhausted. Merchandise is on sale for 60 percent to 70 percent off.

The move leaves one of the Jilek family’s original five Hallmark locations in business. The store at Richland’s Washington Plaza Shopping Center on George Washington Way will continue to operate.

Jilek was a child when his parents, Carolyn and Spence Jilek, opened the Tri-Cities’ first Hallmark Shop, at Columbia Center, to complement their Rexall drugstore business.

In time, the little chain of stores grew to cover the Tri-Cities, selling greeting cards, keepsakes, collectibles, candy, photo albums, gifts and other celebratory items.

Jilek, 57, joined the family business at 19. After his father died in 1990, he ran it along with his mother, eventually buying her out in 1996. Carolyn Jilek died in 2012.

Jilek said he has no plans to retire.

“I’d be bored to death,” he said.

Two out of three U.S. Hallmark stores have closed nationwide in the past decade, leaving fewer than 2,000 nationwide.

Jilek said as groceries, drugstores and outlets like Target began expanding their greeting card lines, his mostly female clientele found it more convenient to skip a special trip to the greeting card store.

And younger people seem to skip greeting cards altogether.

“They just say ‘Happy Birthday!’ on Facebook,” he said.

Greeting cards aren’t the only casualty of technology and a shifting retail landscape.

Over the decades. Jilek watched his top sellers succumb to changing times and interests: photo albums, Russell Stover candies, Yankee Candles and collectibles such as lighted Christmas houses.

Photo albums once took up 28 feet of shelf space, a nod to the era when customers had film developed, then stashed physical images into albums. Digital photography put an end to that.

“Pictures are now in the phone and in the cloud,” he said.

Hallmark stores were once one of the few places to buy Russell Stover chocolates and Yankee Candles. Both manufacturers abandoned their strategies of selling through exclusive partners, preferring to cast a wider retail net to gain market share. Both are widely available.

Jilek said the point was driven home a few weeks ago when his daughter was home from college for Christmas and wanted ice cream. A small business owner, Jilek generally avoids Walmart on principle. But it was the only store open near the family’s Canyon Lakes home.

At Walmart, he spied 12-ounce boxes of Russell Stover candies on sale for $4.99, despite the $9.99 price on the box.

Jilek buys the same product at a wholesale price of $6.66.

“The big stores with their buying power squeeze out the little guy,” he said.

Jilek said the Richland store remains a strong performer thanks to its location and Richland’s favorable demographics. He’s hopeful the store will get a shot in the arm this year as the region’s only outlet for Hallmark’s line of collectible Christmas ornaments.

The ornaments account for 20 percent of his business, and customers remain dedicated to buying new ornaments year after year.

When the last Yakima Hallmark store closed a few years ago, Jilek said he was surprised to see a jump in ornament sales. Yakima fans were driving to the Tri-Cities, he said.

The Tri-City Hallmark stores are locally owned outlets of Hallmark Cards Inc., a family-owned company based in Kansas City, Mo. Hallmark reports global annual sales of $4 billion.

This story was originally published January 5, 2018 at 12:52 PM with the headline "See what’s behind the closing of Kennewick’s Hallmark store after 40 years."