Valley Views: Encore store dancing into the sunset

Ed and Merry Margolin have mixed emotions about closing their Encore Theatrical Supply Co., Inc. After 68 years in the business, it will be nice to have a rest, Ed admitted, but they will miss the decades of helping folks find the perfect dance shoes.

Is there a Pleasanton mom (OK, sometimes a dad) who hasn’t brought in her little girl or boy to be properly measured for the perfect fit in tap or ballet shoes? Good shoes might make the difference between a star and a footsore fizzle. Parents also want shoes that will fit awhile, and this is where personal service is needed, Ed said. Plus, Encore Theatrical Supply was a magical place for children to visit.

I still remember the excitement of buying my tap shoes, going to a shoe store in downtown San Jose on a spring evening in the ’50s. I was transformed into a tapping dervish, clack-clack-clacking on the wood floor between the living room and the dining room. (Is this why my parents soon opted for wall-to-wall carpeting?)

Encore was opened in 1958 near Mills College by Eleanor Gruidl, who eventually moved it to Pleasanton. Meanwhile Ed was working in his family’s theatrical supply businesses in the Bay Area and pursuing his vocation as a drummer. He was manning his uncle’s Dance Art Co. in San Francisco in 1963 when, he recalled, in walked a beautiful ballerina named Merry Avery.

In their early married life, Ed worked as a drummer in a band on the SS Monterey, a deluxe passenger ship that sailed the Pacific, to Hawaii and the South Seas as well as Australia and New Zealand, and to Russia and Egypt. He made union wages, Ed said, and he loved seeing the world as well as returning to be with Merry and their little girl, Tami, for five months a year.

When the cruise gig ended, they settled in Redwood City, where Ed managed a shoe store. But when Eleanor Gruidl, who had been a customer of Ed’s dad, wanted to find a buyer for her theater arts store in the mid-’80s, she persuaded Ed to take a look and said she only wanted payment for the inventory. Ed and Merry were hooked.

Business was thriving when they took over in 1986 with dance teachers giving them lists of items to stock. The store had specialty products that were near impossible to find outside of New York or Hollywood. At Halloween they sold thousands of costumes and wigs, as well as theater-quality makeup. Some days, Ed said, the store had 45-minute waiting lines to buy “spirit gum,” used to stick on clown noses or mustaches. Merry managed the business side.

They moved Encore to a larger store in Pleasanton and opened a branch in Walnut Creek. Their daughter Tami, who was involved in theater and dance for many years, eventually became general manager and head buyer for the stores. In 2014, the Tri-Valley store relocated to Dublin.

But, as for so many retailers, Ed said, “the online shopping boom has hurt the bottom line too much,” and they closed their Walnut Creek store last year. Since they are in their 70s, Ed and Merry decided the time is right to close up shop and retire. They would love to pass the business on, Ed said, but though dance studios are proliferating, people are buying online.

Until the end, Encore had regular hours and, since this is dance competition season, they were ordering new supplies. The lease is up March 31, but Ed planned to leave two weeks to run the vacuum a final time and wipe down the windows.

Now Ed and Merry will take a vacation — which he said she especially deserves after working at the store and doing the bookkeeping “endlessly” — and he’d like to explore the country’s national parks. He continues his drumming, playing his fifth season with the Roger Glenn Trio at the Circus Center Cabaret in San Francisco this month.

Ed said he mainly appreciates that the business was a good living for the family for all those years. It was satisfying to provide people with costumes and theatrical paraphernalia — and to keep everyone dancing.

Editor’s note: Dolores Fox Ciardelli is Tri-Valley Life editor for the Pleasanton Weekly. Her column, “Valley Views,” appears in the paper on the second and fourth Fridays of the month.

Editor’s note: Dolores Fox Ciardelli is Tri-Valley Life editor for the Pleasanton Weekly. Her column, “Valley Views,” appears in the paper on the second and fourth Fridays of the month.

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