Enterprise: Frank’s Bargain Center owner discusses revamping Charlestown fabric, yarn shop
Published: 04-16-2025 10:27 AM |
CHARLESTOWN — When a business changes hands, the new owner usually has experience or a strong knowledge of the product line or service.
They also may have worked there for several years — or at the very least could rely on a knowledgeable staff to help with the transition.
Meagan Hurley checked none of those boxes when she and her husband, Jarrod Filion, bought Frank’s Bargain Center in Charlestown last June. The yarn and fabric store is a half mile from their asphalt contracting business, North American Infrared, on Route 12.
Hurley said Frank’s owner, Phil Methot, who ran the store for 53 years, had asked the couple if they were interested in owning a fabric store.
“ ‘I don’t think so. I don’t know anything about fabric,’ ” Hurley said she told Methot. “But he made a great offer and I thought we could get our money back by liquidating it.”
Hurley, 41, said their initial plan was to sell the inventory of fabrics, yarns and related items, then repurpose the single story, 9,000-square-foot building. The couple considered converting it to apartments, but the property is not served by public water and the cost of fire suppression was prohibitive. When she announced the planned liquidation on social media, howls of protest followed from the store’s loyal customer base.
“I was worried they would get me with knitting needles in the parking lot,” Hurley recalled with a laugh. “I didn’t realize — I’m not a knitter, a crafter and I don’t sew — how beloved this store was. We got such an overwhelming response from the community, I thought, ‘How can we keep Frank’s and give it a more modern look?’ ”
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After the sale was finalized, Hurley said they cleaned the store for two days before reopening. Though his employees retired when Methot sold the store, he helped Hurley get started, offering advice as she learned about the business.
“Phil was there to help after the fact with our questions and he would stop in,” Hurley said. “I didn’t know what a fat quarter (a pre-cut piece of fabric cut wider than a standard quarter yard) was and couldn’t tell you how to cut fabric.”
Hurley persevered through those early, hectic few months and started remodeling in August 2024.
“We were finding our footing at the start because we had no idea what we were doing,” Hurley said, laughing frequently at the experience of getting the store looking the way she wanted. “We jumped in and learned as we went. Sometimes customers helped us out if we didn’t know something.”
With the help of family and friends, Hurley said they had the store running and meeting customer needs while slowly beginning to change over the inventory.
“The first couple of months we mostly ran with what Phil already had, just replenishing things as they sold out, so that we could get our footing as to what fabric and notions (accessories) were what,” Hurley said. “There was a lot of stuff in here and we trimmed it down to what people were asking for and still have some unique things they can’t find anywhere else.”
The announcement in February that Joann Fabrics will be closing brought an “uptick” in customer traffic and Hurley said they want to stock products that Joann’s carries.
“So we are really upping our yarn game,” she said. “We have brought cotton, acrylic and wool and we have really good quilting cotton.”
The store also carries a complete line of “notions” which are accessories such as needles, zippers and batting and thousands of patterns for making clothes.
“People will come in and show us their projects,” she said. “The talent is amazing.”
Hurley said she had a vision of what the store should look like and visited other stores to gather ideas for remodeling the interior to achieve a more modern, less cluttered and brighter appearance.
She also endeavored to learn about sewing as fast as she could. In January, she took a beginner quilting class at Golden Anchor Quilting in Claremont taught by owner Louisa Grindle.
“I didn’t even know what a bobbin was or how to thread it,” Hurley said.
The 19-acre property Frank’s sits on includes a separate 8,500-square-foot building that Hurley wants to turn into an events space for parties, weddings and sewing and quilting classes. In the adjacent field they plan to open a farmer’s market in May. Other events scheduled include an egg hunt in April, a summer solstice artisan’s market in June and Christmas in July on July 19.
As Frank’s nears its one-year anniversary under new ownership, Hurley said the results are more than she could have imagined. There are now three full-time employees and three part-time employees.
“We have gotten a really good response and the store has done really well the past three or four months,” Hurley said. “Every month has been better than the last month, which is good considering we are still in winter.”
Customers, who come from as far away as southern New Hampshire, Montpelier, Burlington and Maine, seem equally pleased.
“We hear stories all the time from people who have been coming here for 40 years and they can’t believe the change and they love it,” Hurley said.
Patrick O’Grady can be reached at pogclmt@gmail.com.