Christine’s to close after 42 years

Christine’s owner Jean Clayton has been selling linens, dinnerware, frames and other gifts in Mountain Brook Village since April 1973.

This April, the boutique shop owner is retiring after 42 years in business. Clayton said she is closing the shop after her lease at 2415 Montevallo Road expires on April 30. 

“April will be the beginning of my 43rd year, but it’s time to move on. It’s been a great journey,” Clayton said. “I’ve been doing this so long that it’s in my blood. I am still leaving my options open.”

After retiring, Clayton said she plans to spend more quality time visiting family, traveling, doing mission work and volunteering. Those are passions that she didn’t have much time to do running Christine’s, which has been a focus of her life for four decades.

Christine’s is named after her mother, who is now 93. Clayton said she came up with the idea of the business after taking family vacations to Florida with her parents and finding unique gifts not available in Birmingham.

Business was slow at the beginning when she started as she sold items that took a while to catch on. 

“Birmingham was a different place in 1973, very traditional. Some of the merchandise was ahead of what our customers wanted and expected at the time,” Clayton said. “We then built a name for ourselves and a loyal customer base.”

The key to Christine’s 42 years in business has been her focus on customer service and filling gift needs unavailable anywhere else. Her shop has customers from across the globe, from California to London, who stop in while visiting relatives and friends in Mountain Brook. 

 “The customer is not always right, but you’ve got to treat them as if they were,” Clayton said. “It’s rare, but if someone comes in dissatisfied, I never get into an argument. I ask what can I do to make it right. You may lose money on them, but you get it back by winning that customer for life.”

Christine’s has been in its current location on Montevallo Road for five years, and before that was a block away on Petticoat Lane. The original location was nearby on Canterbury Road. Clayton said Mountain Brook Village is a more shopper-friendly place than it was 42 years ago.

Clayton used to own a children’s boutique shop, Christine’s Across-the-Street, but sold the business. She also operated a store called Bagatelle, which sold fine bedding, tablecloths and linens, before combining it into Christine’s. For many years, Clayton operated a similar store in Fairhope, called Christine’s By the Bay, before selling it in 1998.

Clayton played a major role in the formation of Market Day, an event in Mountain Brook Village where merchants unite each summer to sell their wares on the street outside their stores. The daylong festivities, started in the 1990s, attract shoppers from across metro Birmingham. 

The original concept was born out of a sale Clayton held at Christine’s every year to celebrate Bastille Day, a French holiday celebrating the storming of the Bastille. 

“Bastille Day was a result of me representing a French linen company and their promotional materials at their request,” she said. “A few years later, we changed the name to Market Day.”

 Market Day is held the third Saturday in July and is now run by the Mountain Brook Chamber of Commerce. It attracts shoppers from several states.

Nan Teninbaum, who has worked at Christine’s for 35 years, said she will miss spending time helping customers at the shop.

“I’ve met people that I never would have if not for working here,” Teninbaum said. “I love the merchandise, I love the atmosphere. It’s the people who come to Christine’s that make it so special.”