Town & Country celebrates 80 years of business
A beloved neighborhood business is celebrating its 80th anniversary this year.
Town & Country, one of the original enterprises in Mountain Brook Village, is still going strong after eight decades in business. Under the ownership of Laurel Bassett since 2009 — only the fourth owner in the business’s history — Town & Country’s legacy is in good hands.
Bassett began working at Town & Country as part of Mountain Brook High School’s co-op program in 1997 and has been with the business in one way or another ever since. With more than 25 years of experience working and running one of the city’s oldest businesses, Bassett is keenly aware of how important Town & Country is to its customers and the community as a whole.
“I definitely feel a sense of responsibility to the business because it’s been around so long, and a sense of responsibility to the customers to keep providing them a place where they feel comfortable coming,” Bassett said. “It’s important to us. Everyone who works here has an emotional attachment to the business and the customers.”
Details on Town & Country’s beginnings are somewhat fuzzy, but what is known is that Margaret Byrum opened the shop in a house in 1943, moving into the current location on Church Street within the next two to three years. Jane Gray and Jane Lamar bought the business sometime around 1970, holding onto it for the next 20 years before selling it to Leigh Cooper and Susan Pierce in 1990.
Upon Pierce’s passing in 2007, Cooper asked Bassett to become her business partner until retiring in 2009.
“She didn’t want to see it go under with such a strong legacy,” Bassett said. “There are a lot of businesses that have been taken over by younger generations that want to change things too much and that don’t understand that people of all ages need a place to shop, too.”
Along with her husband and co-owner, Bassett has gotten to know many customers who were around in the early days and has heard many apocryphal tales about the shop’s early years. For instance, Bassett has heard a story straight out of a Clint Eastwood movie from the husband of a woman who shopped at the store for decades.
“He said he would ride his horse and hitch it out back and come in and play poker with the first owner’s husband,” Bassett said. “They would hang out in the back and drink whiskey and smoke cigars while she would take clothes out and show them to the ladies in the front.”
The hitching post and poker games may be long gone, but one thing that has remained is a high level of customer service. Town & Country not only survived but thrived during the rise and fall of department stores and is bouncing back after the forced shutdowns during the COVID-19 pandemic.
“We’ve seen a renewed appreciation for what we do, especially after COVID,” Bassett said. “We had people who were very loyal and came in and supported us even when they weren’t really going anywhere.”
“We have real relationships with our customers that I don’t think you find everywhere else. It makes it feel a lot less like work because we all look forward to coming here,” she said. “It’s our social time, too.”
We have real relationships with our customers that I don’t think you find everywhere else.
LAUREL BASSETT
Town & Country’s reputation reaches far and wide, from the generations of families that have shopped at the store for special occasions to the suppliers and designers consulting with Bassett on new styles and the business leaders and organizations that have taken notice. The business was recently nominated for the 2023 Alabama Retail Association Retailer Of The Year Award.
Town & Country’s reputation and legacy are based on one primary concept: a level of service from a bygone era.
“They’ve become like family to me,” said Denine Mackie, a Tampa resident and representative for Sympli, a women’s clothing line featured at Town & Country. “I think Town & Country provides a level of customer service that is kind of unprecedented. The stores that do that more old-school business in the boutique industry are long gone.”
“Town & Country has been a staple in Mountain Brook for 80 years, making it one of the longest-standing businesses in our community,” said Emily Jensen, executive director of the Mountain Brook Chamber of Commerce. “This longevity is due to their reputation for outstanding service and selection, which the Bassett family continues today. Eight decades is certainly worth celebrating.”
Town & Country is located at 74 Church Street in Mountain Brook Village.