A Little Bit of Mayberry

At Bradley Shopping Center in Bethesda, most of the shops and the shop owners have been around for years—and everybody looks out for one another

By Karen A. Watkins

If hairstylist Dean Alexis needs a jolt of java, he won’t be found at Starbucks shelling out three bucks for a latte with a name. The House of Alexis owner gets his cup of coffee next door at Bradley Food & Beverage, where he can stop in and pour his own—for free.

When Strosniders Hardware employee Rabia Crawford needs coffee in the mornings for the Strosniders’crew, she heads down for whole potfuls to take back to the hardware store. She needs so much coffee she just goes behind the counter and makes it herself. Then she makes another pot for Bradley Food’s other customers.

Bradley Food owners Tom and Charleen “Charlie” Merkel don’t mind. Tom Merkel gets free haircuts at House of Alexis in return and has a house account at Strosniders.

House of Alexis, Bradley Food and Strosniders are three of the 10 stores in the 54-year-old Bradley Shopping Center—a landmark to stability and authenticity in a town where newness and change are the norm. Located on Arlington Road just past the cranes and bustle of downtown Bethesda, most of the center’s stores and their owners have been there for decades: Tom Merkel opened Bradley Food in 1972.

Bruce Variety opened more than 20 years ago and Kae Robin & Company has been in the center since 1959. For the store owners, years of working side by side has engendered a Main Street-like feeling of camaraderie—even of family. They help each other with equipment problems, grieve together after family deaths and support each other when the unexpected occurs, like power outages during Hurricane Charley in 2004.

“This is a great strip. It’s like home. It’s like ‘old time.’ It’s what society is missing—like it was in the ’20s and ’30s, when people talked to each other,” says Clarissa Posner, who owns Bradley Care Drugs with her husband, pharmacist David Posner.

Property manager Helen Olson has been with the center for 50 years. She organizes festivals and events—and still attends the parties. She knows everyone, including the newer owners, because most of them started out as employees. When her husband of 54 years, Donald “Bud” Olson, died in 2004, all of the merchants came to the funeral, nearly closing the center down for the day. “They are all my friends,” Olson says. “If they have a problem they call me and I do what I can for them.”

Small-town friendliness
The shopping center’s parking lot is nearly full by 9:30 a.m. on a weekday. Inside Kae Robin & Company, a gift shop filled with goodies ranging from Vera Bradley bags to imported bath soaps to Brighton shoes, a customer inquires whether a sandal comes in white. Another customer, a petite, attractive woman wearing fishnets and a black skirt, carries an armful of colorful bunnies and other animal figurines. It’s Clarissa Posner of Bradley Care Drugs just a few doors down. “I love this store,” she says. “I shop here all the time.”

Kae Robin owner Joanne Horn, 52, was a store customer herself before starting as a part-timer in 1995. She eventually became the manager and bought the store in 2004. Other store owners also started as employees: David Posner was the pharmacist at Bradley Care Drugs before taking it over in 2003, and Bill Hart Jr., who owns Strosniders, started as an employee in 1972 under original owner Walter Strosnider.

Store founder Strosnider certainly nailed it when he opened his hardware store in 1953 and came up with the center’s motto: “A Friendly Place to Shop.” Hart says he runs the store the same way Strosnider did, and he is passing the store’s traditions on to his son, Bill Hart III, the general manager. Although they say there are more than 2,000 transactions on any given Saturday, many people come in just for home improvement help and advice from Strosniders’ longtime, knowledgeable employees—the key to the hardware store’s success. Not surprisingly, the emphasis is on people, not product. “Sell yourself,” the elder Hart instructs employees. Customers frequently ask for sales associates like Charles Lewis by name. Lewis’ first job was directing parking lot traffic back in 1975.

As well as being the anchor of the shopping center, Hart says Strosniders “is like the hospital.” Strosniders often comes to the rescue of fellow shop owners. “They all rely on the hardware store,” Hart says. “We put the Band-Aids on.”

“When we had the hurricane three years ago, they [Strosniders] gave me a generator and I stayed in business for three days without power,” says David Posner. “We all help each other out. We work with each other. If someone has a question about medical needs, I help them.”

Bradley Cleaners owner Wilson Terry recalls when one of his washing machines was on the fritz: “Bill Hart said, ‘I know where you can get one used. I can have it here tomorrow.’” And he did, which saved Terry valuable time—and money. Terry says he doesn’t mind returning the favor. “I may be busy, but if you have a problem, it’s my problem. I’ll do anything for anyone.”

Leaning on one another
The Posners moved to Bethesda a few years ago to be closer to their business, but not without trepidation about leaving “small-town” Baltimore. “You hear that Bethesda is a lot of snooty people,” Clarissa Posner says. “But that’s not the case.”

She has found friends at the shopping center who have sustained her during good and bad times, and a staff who have stepped up to the plate for her. “My store is my family. I got a virus last year and almost died. We have no backup when we get sick. It’s nice we have a good crew.”

Although some owners occasionally visit each other’s homes for dinner or a wedding, all come together when there is a death or tragedy affecting the people they work with every day. “I remember one year when the daughter of our UPS man passed away,” Tom Merkel says. “We all chipped in and sent platters of food to Baltimore.”

In 2006, when Ketty Alvarado, mother-in-law of longtime Bradley Food employee Oscar Sanchez, was killed in a hit-and-run accident, Charlie Merkel quickly devised a plan to help with the expense of the funeral in Alvarado’s native Colombia. She placed a notice about the accident and a bucket for donations in each of the shops. In less than a week, she raised more than $4,000 from employees, store owners and customers. “The community was just amazing,” she says.

Haircuts, dry cleaning and lunch
The Harts take their dry cleaning to Bradley Cleaners (Terry provides on-the-spot cleaning for emergency spills), get their haircuts at Bradley Barber and lunch at Bradley Food. Hart says store owners sometimes give each other discounts, and referrals among the businesses are common.

Bill Hart III recalls that when longtime Bruce Variety employee Peggy Lampe couldn’t find something for a customer, she’d walk the customer over to Strosniders to see if they had the item in stock. But failing to find what you want at Bruce Variety, the “everything” store, isn’t likely. Where else can you buy a “Satin Bra Stash” to tuck away valuables? Even the ceiling is jam-packed: piņatas, hand puppets and Halloween hats hang overhead. Going through the front door is like entering a five-and-dime store from another era.

Lampe began working at the store in 1960 when Robert Bruce Dotson, the “Bruce” of Bruce Variety, was still the owner. Lampe’s 70th birthday was announced on the shopping center’s marquee a decade ago—she didn’t know it was up there until several customers wished her a “Happy Birthday.” Now Lampe only works an occasional shift, but her daughters, Linda Irons and Sarah Dyer, have worked there for 21 and 22 years respectively. “I thought I’d be here two years when I came,” Dyer says.

Irons’ and Dyer’s sons got their first haircuts next door at Bradley Barber. One of the boys is now 43. Trimming their locks was Jose Ayala, 64, a native Ecuadorian who has been cutting hair at Bradley for 42 years and remembers the lean times of the Beatles’ mop tops and the shaggy ’70s. Ayala has trimmed the hair of Wizards owner Abe Pollin and three generations of columnist George Will’s family, as well as countless neighborhood regulars. Four generations of some families have sat in his chair.

Ayala predates current owners Spiros Kaldis and his father, Nick Kaldis, who bought the shop in 1972. Bill Hart Jr. of Strosniders always went to Nick Kaldis; now Ayala cuts his hair because Nick is often in Greece. Spiros Kaldis says he probably cuts the hair of a dozen people who work at the shopping center.

Bill Hart III, 38, goes to his contemporary, Spiros Kaldis. “We’re exactly the same age; I knew I’d have a barber for life!” Hart says.

Longevity among staff and merchants is the norm, so much so that Steve Raab of Breads Unlimited, who has been at Bradley Shopping Center for 25 years, calls himself a “newcomer.” His business may be the oldest, however. His Austrian father, George Raab, learned baking from his own father and grandfather, and in 1949 opened Breads Unlimited on Georgia Avenue in Washington, D.C. The Bethesda store opened in 1981. The tradition continues with Raab’s son, Gary Raab, 38, who also works at Breads Unlimited.

Manager Susan Tatassopoulos has spruced things up a bit at the bakery since she came on board three years ago. She rearranged the cases, added a table and chairs and fresh paint.

Gathering place
The lunch spot for many shop owners and staff—as well as regular customers—is Bradley Food & Beverage.

Some things have changed at Bradley Food since Tom Merkel, 56, started the store over 35 years ago, but not much, he says. There are more and better wines now and the advent of microbrews jazzed up the beer inventory.

The customers and store owners chat with a cozy familiarity. At the bakery counter, Bill Hart Jr. discusses parking issues with Tom Merkel. Sarah Dyer from Bruce’s drops in and chats with Charlie Merkel. At the soda fountain having a drink is Patricia Tolbert, Bradley Food’s wine supplier. Charlie Merkel and Lisa Alexis held a wine tasting in November with Tolbert at House of Alexis salon, with the wines for sale next door at Bradley Food. Other merchants contributed gift certificates and door prizes. Like the Merkels, Tolbert is a customer at House of Alexis. “I drive from Herndon just to get my hair done,” she says.

Charlie Merkel says that when she first came to Bradley Shopping Center, she was surprised to run into Dean Alexis, a childhood acquaintance. “His father [Frixo Alexis, the original owner of House of Alexis] bought insurance from my father,” says Charlie Merkel, 52. “Who’d have thought we’d have businesses right next door to each other? I hadn’t seen him since I was 14.”

Small world. And as the next generation comes of age, it gets smaller. The Merkels’ 17-year-old daughter, Annie, works for House of Alexis as a receptionist. Her brother, Sam, 19, works behind his parents’ deli counter during the summer. Employees from Bradley Food also work shifts at other stores; three head to Bruce Variety when they’re finished at the market.

The Alexis’ son, James, 19, is attending Paul Mitchell Academy in Frederick and their daughter Victoria, 22, a graduate of Elon University, is currently at aesthetician school. Dean Alexis, 54, says he hopes his kids will come on board at the salon. He and wife Lisa Alexis have recently remodeled the shop, and fresh-faced young people greet customers at the front desk. But House of Alexis also still has a core of customers and staff that go back generations.

Jean Seybert of Bethesda says she has been going to the salon on and off since her daughter was little. “How old is your daughter now?” asks her stylist. “Forty-eight,” Seybert replies. Employee Josepha Romero has been with the shop for 35 years.

Personal touch
Through the years, the merchants at Bradley Shopping Center have seen their businesses flourish as the city around them has boomed and changed.

A new Giant with underground parking went up on Arlington Road in 2003, and down the street is further development of Bethesda Row: More retail, salons and restaurants will open soon. Bradley Shopping Center so far has remained impervious, though not oblivious, to those changes taking place nearby, and with many of the original owners and their descendants in place at the shops, the small-town feel—so far—remains.

Bradley Foods still maintains “house accounts” and delivers. Charlie Merkel makes custom gift baskets, including one every year for Bruce Variety’s Peggy Lampe to send to her former employer, Dotson.

David Posner of Bradley Care Drugs isn’t daunted by the competition surrounding him. Although both Safeway and CVS are across the street, the pharmacist says, “People come to me because they want to come to me. We deliver, set up customer accounts. We do what the others don’t.

“Up the street at Bethesda Row there’s a new business every 15 minutes. There have only been around 15 different tenants here over the years. Very few businesses go out. Some of the owners have changed, but the businesses stay,” he says.

Still going strong
Many of the original stores at the Bradley Shopping Center opened for business in 1953. The concept of the center was dreamed up by businessmen Samuel W. Barrow and Henry J. Robb, who together with about 15 associates were the original shareholders. In addition to shops, the men wanted to provide services for customers, such as a dry cleaner, shoe valet, a barber and a hair salon.

An Acme grocery store originally stood in Strosniders’ current spot and the hardware store was located where Bradley Food & Beverage stands today. Gaston of Paris was the original hair salon; Bradley Cleaners started as a valet and shoe cobbler. Breads Unlimited expanded from Georgia Avenue in D.C. to the Bethesda location, and the Chevron was an Esso. Today’s shareholders are the descendants of the original group and many participate in the center’s festivals and parties.  

Karen A. Watkins is contributing editor of Bethesda Magazine.