Tinsley's Furniture joins list of recession victims

By Matt Garfield - mgarfield@heraldonline.com

Thursday felt like a return to the good times for Drenner Tinsley. But the showroom at Tinsley's Furniture stayed busy for an unfortunate reason.

After 25 years, Tinsley is closing his store and leaving the furniture business. Thursday marked the start of a going-out-of-business sale that will mean the end of a long run for the Rock Hill merchant.

Customers came to search for big discounts on sofas, tables and lamps inside the store on North Cherry Road near Interstate 77.

Taking a moment to sit down after a long day on his feet, Tinsley talked about how he got to this point.

“Three years ago, we started seeing signs of a drop-off,” he said. “It just kept getting worse and worse. The business just didn't come back to the point where it could sustain us.”

Tinsley, 55, joins other Rock Hill shop owners who have closed in the past few months, including Margaret Harper at The Cobbler's Bench shoe store and Dave Shook at Old Town Outfitters outdoor store.

The recession made it difficult to stay viable in an already competitive business. Tinsley positioned his store as a middle-market option, a mom 'n' pop alternative to higher-end retailers that would offer more personal attention.

“This is the first place we'd want to come,” said longtime customer Lydia Smoak, browsing through the showroom Thursday.

Friend and neighbor Mike Fitzgerald called the closing a disappointing sign of the times.

“It's difficult for a single store owner to buy enough volume to compete with the chains,” he said. “That starts to catch up after a while as the business model changes.”

Tinsley's wife, Marsha, handled the purchasing and back office work while he thrived as the front man with the easygoing personality. When he would get distracted, Marsha put him back in line.

“This business could not be where it is without my wife,” Tinsley said. “My wife is the antithesis of me, and that's probably why we've been successful for 25 years.”

Career change

A month ago, Marsha Tinsley started a new job in Columbia as a corporate auditor in the state Department of Revenue. She makes a 1-hour, 20-minute commute to Columbia from the family's home in Meadowlakes II.

Drenner Tinsley plans to work as a real estate agent with Allen Tate. The career change is ironic given the slowdown in the housing market, but Tinsley expects Rock Hill to emerge in good shape.

“I say it's like going from the frying pan to the fire,” he said. “I think the real estate business will come back faster than the furniture business.”

Tinsley got his start in retail as a teenager in the late 1960s. He took a job sweeping floors in the old Rock Hill Hardware for owners Caldwell and Billy Barron. The store had a downtown location and a branch in the old Beaty Mall on Cherry Road.

In 1984, Tinsley opened a furniture store called Woodbin on India Hook Road. He moved to Cherry Road across from Cherry Park for a few years before settling into his current location in 2000.

The store once employed more than a dozen people and probably enjoyed its peak around 2005, Tinsley said. But as the recession deepened, the staff dwindled to four.

“We did everything we were trained to do,” Tinsley said. “It just got to the point where, instead of the store supporting us, we were supporting the store. And you can only do that for so long.”