By now, most of the town knows that the iconic Main Street store, Root’s Hometown Furniture, will be closing its doors in the coming days. When Rick Root shared his news with me, I was truly saddened. Root’s is one of those wonderful Bristow family businesses we kind of assume, and hope, will always be around.

Sure, Root’s will still be there to serve Bristow area residents from its Cushing location, but that’s not the same. The corner of Main Street that Root’s occupies won’t be same. Too, some local jobs will be lost – as well as significant sales tax revenues to the city. Several reasons we should always be mindful of the contributions our locally owned businesses make toward the well being of our community.

While some businesses may close their doors due to health, age, retirement (or poor management), most close due to a lack of sales.  We have so many great businesses – retail shops, local professionals (insurance, real estate, docs, dentists, eye care and more), and local tradesmen or contractors – that deserve, and need, our trade. They need our trade to survive and thrive. And when we support those businesses with our business, those owners and local employees tend to spend their dollars here as well – and we all benefit. More LOCAL choices when we need them, more tax revenue supporting our town, and more jobs available to our residents. Food for thought.

The retail and Main Street business complexion of Bristow will continue to change and evolve – that’s okay. We lost the western furniture some years ago, and later gained Artisans On Main in its space. The former video store is now Homestead Medical. And as of last week, we have a new (and timely) addition – Appliance Service in the old R&R Appliance location on West Route 66. They offer quality used and refurbished appliances and provide appliance service and repair.

Back to our goodbye – we’ll miss having Root’s Hometown gracing Main Street – and wish Rick, Michelle and their crew all the best. Thanks for all your contributions to Bristow over the past 17 years.

From their Facebook page:

“We appreciate all of our customer’s and employee’s with Root’s Hometown. We look forward to 2017 and pray that everyone will have a blessed and prosperous year. We are all very saddened by the closure of our store in Bristow coming up but we do look forward to serving ALL of our customers for many years to come. We will continue to offer the same low prices and great selection of products and continue to honor all of manufacturer’s warranties at our Cushing location. We could never have our business without our loyal customer’s and our awesome employee’s. Thank you everyone for your continued support.”