Wong’s Drapery Shoppe shares 73 years of memories

When you walk into Wong’s Drapery Shoppe on South ­Beretania Street, it’s like stepping back decades in time with old family pictures and memorabilia displayed amid the merchandise.

If mementos of the store’s 73-year history are given pride of place, “that’s what to me makes an island business what it is, its relationship to the community,” said Melvin Wong, the company’s CEO since 2012.

The store was founded in 1947 by his late grandfather Wong Inn, the son of Chinese sugar plantation laborers, whose life exemplified the classic American dream that anyone, no matter their social status, can attain success through dedicated effort, Melvin Wong said.

Gesturing around the store, Wong continued, “This all was started by a boy of 12 with only one year of education.” By that age his grandfather was living on his own — it was 1901 — and had the will to learn new skills at every odd job he could find.

Despite the homage paid to the past, Wong’s Drapery has kept pace with the computer age and thrived because of the way his grandfather ran his business. “There’s no substitute for experience, old-fashioned values and caring for your customer,” he said, proud that Wong’s Drapery has won the Star-Advertiser’s Hawaii’s Best People’s Choice awards the past four years.

As a young man, his grandfather learned bookkeeping in a small dry goods store, then went on to Liberty House’s dry goods department, where he acquired experience with fabric. He raised a family, teaching his seven children the same values with which he ran his business — hard work, honesty, kindness and generosity — and they all “lived the American dream,” Wong said.

A history major in college, Melvin Wong has always appreciated people and events of the past, and that’s why he’s filled a wall in the store with a montage of photos, news clippings and souvenirs dating back to these milestones in the company’s growth. His grandfather is pictured often dressed in a suit and tie with relatives who worked with him in the stores. Many longtime customers love looking at the exhibit because the photos remind them of their own families, and they have contributed souvenirs to the collection.

Right by the front door, there’s a vintage aloha shirt made of sturdy bark cloth, which Wong’s Drapery made for only the first two years after they opened, with the original thank-you note written by baseball legend Joe DiMaggio. Melvin’s father, Richard, gave the shirt to the New York Yankee when they met while playing an all-star baseball exhibition game in Honolulu in 1948, verified by news stories next to it.

“Seventy years later, it shows up” for sale on the internet, posted by an aloha shirt collector. It was in prime condition, authenticated with DiMaggio’s laundry tag still on it. His family insisted it was worth $5,000 to bring it back home and display it in the store. “It brings my father back; that was one thing he was really proud of.”

Wong’s Drapery opened on South ­Beretania Street, then two years later opened another location in the Hawaii National Bank building on Smith and King streets downtown. (For five years there were two locations, but the original shop closed around 1955.) It even had branches in three GEM department stores on Oahu in the 1950s. Around 1969, with the growth of the suburbs, the store closed its downtown branch and returned to Beretania in its present location.

Wong has been working at the store since 1969 while still in high school and assisted his father, who ran the store from 1976 to 1997. His uncle Mun Kin Wong, two aunts and his cousins were all involved. Melvin Wong learned every step of the business, from installing draperies to administration and sales.

“I got to go to all the new homes and neighborhoods, from Pearlridge to Hawaii Kai to Mililani, I saw the whole island develop in the span of a couple decades,” he said.

The 1990s were one of the company’s turning points, when employees began incorporating computers, but it was gradual enough so it was not chaotic. Wong thinks his generation, the last to know how to do things the old way, appreciates technology even more because they know how time-consuming and difficult things used to be.

“This is not a business anyone can just decide to get into … without experience it’s really hard,” he said. A lot of precision and multiple steps are involved in making and installing drapes; many things can go wrong. With windows of so many different sizes these days, customers are particular about the fit and requesting custom-made drapes, compared to the ready-made drapes that dominated a decade ago.

“My grandfather chose a very good market to go into. In Hawaii you have lots of windows, and lots of sunshine. That will never go out of style,” he said, adding there’s no substitute for drapes for privacy, as well as insulation from the heat, sun or noise.

Although the deluge of online shopping has impacted sales for most businesses, Wong’s has been lucky. “It’s not the easiest thing to buy (drapes) online,” not only because precision in measuring is so important, but customers aren’t able to feel how thick the fabric is, see how it looks in different light, or know what kind of hardware they need.

What’s sustained Wong’s Drapery has been the owners’ commitment to caring for their customers, along with good communication. People can usually tell if a salesperson has their best interests at heart or is just trying to sell them the highest-priced item, he added. “We put ourselves in the customers’ shoes. We want to make sure when people go home, they’re happy with what they see,” and not stuck with something they don’t like, he said.

Wong remembers his grandfather and father bringing his suppliers home for dinner to meet the family and becoming good friends. “That was a different world” from the faceless, online experience of sales today. His attitude toward competitors is also a throwback to a friendlier age; he’s always treated them with respect and felt that the market was big enough for everyone, and that there was “no need for fighting over business.”

Today, Wong’s wife, Janice, his brother Steve and his son Matthew are among a staff of nine, and he’s proud that he has some very loyal employees. He singled out vice president of operations, Marieta Lamug, hired by his father in 1988, as one of the longtime staff who has been invaluable.

It’s possible Wong’s son may take over the business when he retires, but only if he really wants to, not just because he feels obligated. Wong, in the meantime, has no desire to stop working, nor will he predict the likelihood of the family carrying on his grandfather’s legacy. “Technology takes its own direction, some things you thought would never happen have happened in life.”

Wong’s Drapery Shoppe; 1330 S. Beretania St.; phone 596-2722; wongsdraperyshoppe.com.