the store.

I'm guessing that most of you know that I sell kitchen equipment and gadgets, but I'm betting that most don't know the history of Krebs...... that we've been in business nearly 78 years.

Leo Krebs opened the original location in downtown Little Rock in 1933.  It was originally set up similar to a hardware store, but eventually transitioned into a supplier to hotels, schools and restaurants.

The store relocated to a top secret location off of 12th Street in the late 1970s.....  Ok.... it might not have been top secret, but it was hard to find.  I don't know how many conversations I had with people that were in our parking lot outside the building still unable to find us.  When they moved from downtown to the new location, the green shelves and several other fixtures featured in the above picture made the move to the new store.  These made merchandising a challenge, and the store still had the feeling of an old fashioned hardware store. 

With Helen & Pati.....the only other female employees when I started working at Krebs.

I had no clue when I began working at Krebs part time in 1997 that I would still be here 13 years later.  I had worked in restaurants for years, but terms like monkey dish, China cap, and disher were foreign to me.  Fast forward many price tags and a few months, and I now know the difference between a spoodle and spoonula.  I was learning things, and moved from inventory control into purchasing...... from purchasing into sales......and then, back into purchasing.  But my biggest transition was moving into store manager.......a store manager without a store.

We moved out of our LR location in January of 2006.  These are the last pictures I have from the old store.  It seemed so much bigger before moving to NLR.  Hard to believe that the old store, office space and warehouse would probably fit inside of the store we now have.

Krebs Westpark Showroom

My Westpark office.....with Wally's right through that door.

With Deanna inside old warehouse for one last look around.

So, we moved to NLR and I began helping make plans to remodel the portion of the building that is now the store.  It took two years to complete the remodel and get the store open. 

The above pictures were from January of 2007.  The first one is the view from the warehouse facing the entrance before we remodeled it.  The second shot is of an area that still had the office space intact.  By July of 2007, we had torn down all of the existing interior walls, the back wall finished and my office was in place.

The biggest change for me was when the windows were added! 

Once the windows were in, it seemed like things began to move quickly.  It wasn't long before we had shelving units going up, and merchandise moving into place.

We officially opened on June 30, 2008.  In addition to the commercial equipment and supplies that we had been carrying for 75 years, we added several retail lines that target the homeowner.  I'm proud of the work I've done......and continue to try to improve upon it.  It's amazing to look back at all of the pictures I took during the remodel.  We've changed a lot in just two years. 

Even Santa shops at Krebs!