Welcome to our next installment of focused conversations with community personalities as we approach the third decade of the 21st century. Here, we speak with Stephen Samaras, former president of the Downtown Annapolis Partnership and owner of Zachary’s Jewelers on Main Street.
What do you think of Mayor Gavin Buckley’s plans for bocce courts and ping-pong tables as part of a downtown park? How will that affect you and the rest of the city, and do you see this as a progression, or just another of his “trial balloons?”
Let me first say that I’ve been in business in Annapolis through eight mayors—all of them good people, some with more of a political agenda than others. I find Gavin’s approach to running the city refreshing. I hope I’m right in assuming that he’s not motivated from a political perspective. I believe politics is not something he wants to make a career. He does love the city, much like myself and many others. He has several businesses in the city, and he wants to see them thrive. He lives in the city and wants to make it a secure place for himself and his family and friends.
So, I think all of the motivation is right, as was proven by the attempt to put the bike lane in downtown Annapolis. As principal owners of businesses, we act on such decisions immediately because they’re going to affect us in some way...Other things have to take place prior to making big decisions like that. And he responded and reacted, I thought, in a very professional and courteous way.
I like the fact that he has creative, new, and fresh ideas. Are a bocce court, ping pong tables, and a park on the dock the answer for that area? I don’t know. I don’t have the crystal ball. But I’m always willing to listen and hear both sides of an argument and come to a group decision, which is how you’re supposed to run small towns, I think. How we’re supposed to run government, in and of itself, doesn’t seem to be working in certain other areas, does it?
You mentioned a crystal ball. If you had a magic wand, or a crystal ball, or whatever vessel you choose, what would you do to keep the city the way it is in some ways and still move forward—especially downtown?
The parties directly affected by any decision to, say, change the historic commercial district, to advance it, should be brought together to answer the simple question: “What do you want the downtown district of Annapolis to look like when it grows up?”
Are you referring to the members of the Downtown Annapolis Partnership?
Yes, and more. It would be people who work, live, and have businesses downtown—everyone who has an interest in what this town should be. I don’t believe we’re there, not when you have an abundance of T-shirt shops, and there’s no cohesive message we present, other than that we have good restaurants and bars.
We had an economic development organization funded by the city years ago that failed. We need to again determine what we want this place to look like and then find and solicit businesses that represent that thinking. If I had to take all the storefronts here and put into them what I think would be successful downtown, it would include a variety of upscale shops—clothing shops, perhaps—places that represent a thriving downtown district...We see today the influence the internet is having on bricks-and-mortar retail at every level...We have to present an experience [to shoppers] that is unlike what they might be receiving when they’re shopping online with Amazon. We have to create an experience that they want to come back and revisit.
How do you deal with the boom in mail orders, the handiness of it all? Online mail-ordering is not hands-on shopping.
We’re fortunate insofar as we’ve created a brand in Annapolis. What we sell here, with some exceptions, are pieces that people still want to try on. The online competition we’re facing is primarily selling diamonds as a commodity. They’re certainly not showing anyone a diamond on the internet. They’re selling a graded report, suggesting what the diamond is. Much like a piece of jewelry, you have different levels of quality in those diamonds.
You could have two diamonds that, based on the reports they’re showing, appear to be the exact same quality. Yet you may be dealing with thousands of dollars in difference in price between those two diamonds. Trust me when I tell you there’s a reason that one may sell for $5,000 and the other sells for $9,000. With our jewelry, for example, we pride ourselves in providing a higher-end quality. It’s not going to fall apart on you, and if it does break apart, we have to be behind that piece to support it and to repair or replace it for the client. That’s the type of organization we’ve constructed over the years. What’s resonated with me is what my parents always told me. If you’re faced with a problem, look to yourself first to see if you’re responsible for that problem.
"We’re fortunate insofar as we’ve created a brand in Annapolis. What we sell here, with some exceptions, are pieces that people still want to try on. The online competition we’re facing is primarily selling diamonds as a commodity. They’re certainly not showing anyone a diamond on the internet. They’re selling a graded report, suggesting what the diamond is. Much like a piece of jewelry, you have different levels of quality in those diamonds." - Stephen Samaras
That’s how we deal with the external competition that we can’t control. There’s always going to be someone out there who sells something cheaper than you do, who professes that they have something better than you do, or who maybe sells the same brand you might represent. But the one thing they can’t replicate is the experience that they receive when they come into this store. It’s all about creating an environment that people want to come back to.
The proposed progression of the downtown district is apparently what some envision as a sort of European-type promenade, even taking it to the level of prohibiting automobile traffic—which seems to be quite a big “what if.” How would that impact you and your business?
I don’t know whether that’s even possible, because Main Street is such a tributary. It’s one of the major “veins” running through the city. If that were to happen, even if it meant just certain scheduled dates or days of the week, we have to become the destination store. We must keep in mind that visitors also shop here. So, you can look at it from that side, too...I realized after doing an analysis a couple of years ago that about 40 percent of our business comes from outside Anne Arundel County. That’s a significant amount of business, so that type of change to the city landscape, I think, would have a positive effect on growing those numbers.
But such a move may have an adverse effect on whether or not the local client comes downtown to shop—something we certainly don’t want to happen. But I think [closing the street] would have a dramatic and favorable effect on weekend business. And if they were to close off vehicular traffic on the weekend and then have it open through the week, I think you could accomplish both goals and satisfy both types of client.
Recall for us the big fire that devastated a large part of Main Street in 2005—especially the story of the aftermath and how the city came together to support Zachary’s Jewelers’ recovery.
It occurred on Black Friday, 2005, the day after Thanksgiving, which as all of us know as the beginning of the highest season of the year for virtually any retail business. The fire began at about 7:30 that evening. My dad had passed away a few days earlier, and we had just had the funeral prior to the fire. I was with family and friends at a restaurant when I received a phone call saying that there was a big fire on Main Street near the area where we were located. So, I rushed downtown. I actually ran into our store. It wasn’t in flames at that point, but it was filled with smoke. Firefighters grabbed me as I was coming in, ensuring me that everyone was out and safe. I watched the fire progress through the evening. It’s funny what happens when you are faced with something like that. You reach down and find what you’re made of. And I’m not speaking specifically of myself as much as the effect the community had on my staff and me. Every one of us gathered across the street at what was then Peppers and spoke about the near future—what we could do in the coming days, what it meant on a long-term basis, and what the possibilities and the options were. We had just sent out a holiday invitation that week for a party that was to occur on the following Friday. We all agreed that we would try to be ready and reopen for the party, even though we didn’t yet know the extent of the fire.
I was confronted almost immediately with several offers. One was from Historic Annapolis, which offered me what is now the museum store, on the corner of Green and Main streets, as a temporary store. I was offered a place out on West Street and this very corner shop [where we were sitting for the interview], which at that point had been vacated by Banana Republic and later occupied by Dockside Outfitters.
I gathered the staff the next morning, using the back room of the cigar shop on Main Street as our office space. We had already identified 152 items we needed to address to open—from showcases to staffing to inventory. Within a week, we accomplished all but 10 of those 152 items. We had 70 charitable organizations we had supported over the years contact us, offering their assistance. It was something I never expected, and I certainly didn’t expect us to respond the way we did.
A week after the fire, we had 400 people inside and outside of the building for the grand opening for our holiday event. Senator [John] Astle came and introduced me as the “George Bailey of Annapolis.” I had never seen the movie prior to this, but now, from Thanksgiving through Christmas, we play a continuous loop of “It’s A Wonderful Life” here in the store. It was a time that I never want to relive, but I’m so thankful for the fact that we did go through it, because it really showed the spirit of this staff and of this town.
How did you end up moving down the street to your present location?
I was approached with a proposal to open up at the corner location. My first response was that I couldn’t afford it. I had heard the number when Banana Republic moved, and I had said at that time that there was no way I could pay that much. When I made this comment, the reply was, “You’d be surprised. That corner is magical.”
With the increased rent, I needed to have a dramatic annual increase in revenue. That December, we did over a million dollars more than we needed for the entire year. So, against my conservative fiscal nature, we put a renovation plan together for the property in 2006. But then we decided our success that December might have been an anomaly, for several reasons, and that maybe we should wait another Christmas. Was it a response from the community to support a business that had been destroyed? Or was it truly the effect of being on this corner in Annapolis? Once again, we had a fantastic holiday season. So, in 2007, we did a major renovation, which is what you see today.
It’s funny how things happen. This was right at the beginning of the recession, so other jewelers and retailers in the country were feeling a significant drop in business. Our lowest year was nine percent less than our best. So, it wasn’t as dramatic a hit as it could have been. And I attribute that to the fact that we had just at the right time done a renovation and became very popular all at once.
It sounds like timing was everything.
It was everything.
