Taffy's celebrates colorful history

Fifty years ago, Jack Tafeen and his wife, Peggy, opened a high-end men’s apparel store and tailor shop on St. Armands Circle. Today, Taffy’s Menswear is the oldest retail merchant on the Circle.

It was in their blood. Tafeen’s grandfather was a tailor for celebrities and taught him the trade. Peggy’s parents owned H.A. Buckner, a successful department store in Norwich, Conn. Jack and Peggy Tafeen helped run the store after Peggy’s father died. After H.A. Buckner was sold, the couple retired to Florida. The Tafeens started Taffy’s to keep busy.

“My mom was instrumental in the business — she had the knowledge,” says the couple’s daughter, Amy Tafeen. “Without my mom, he wouldn’t have been (able to do it).”

It was a true family business. Amy Tafeen worked there every day.

“I remember sitting around the house trying to name the business,” says Amy Tafeen, now owner and chiropractor at Family Chiropractic in Sarasota.

They settled on the name “Taffy’s,” a play on their last name, and wanted to brand the store with a trademark: salt-water taffy, which they handed out to visitors.

“Some people would come in just for the taffy,” Amy Tafeen says.

The customers may have come in for the candy, but they remained loyal because Taffy’s offered exclusivity in product and customer service.

Amy Tafeen remembers her dad going on buying trips to New York to hand-pick the clothing they would carry in the store.

“I think they were pioneers,” she says. “They always went the extra mile.”

For example, couples were waited on when they came into Taffy’s. While the man was being fitted, the woman was relaxing with magazines and beverages.

And they didn’t just go the extra mile for patrons.

“I remember going around with (my dad) on holidays to deliver turkeys to the people that worked for him and couldn’t afford it,” Amy Tafeen says.

The employees were diverse.

“My dad didn’t see color, race or religion,” she says.

Henry “Hank” Battie was a black employee who started work at the store stocking and cleaning with hopes of becoming a salesman. After three white men had been promoted to salesman before him, he quit.

Jack Tafeen told him: “St. Armands isn’t ready for you.”

Two months later, Battie came back to the store to work the annual April sale.

“I laid the alteration tickets down and just started selling,” Battie says. “At the end of the day, Jack called me into his office and said, ‘I’ve been watching you on the floor and would love to have you as a salesman,’” Battie says.

He was one of the first black salesmen on St. Armands and worked there for 16 years until he opened his own store, Cravat’s Custom Clothiers.

“I think he felt like I was his protégé or graduate to some extent,” says Battie. “Taffy’s gave me the background I needed to open my own business.”

In its heyday, there would be 19 salesmen on the floor at a time. And at the yearly sale every April, a line of people would form outside of Taffy’s — people would even fly in for the sale, and employees would have to wade through throngs of people to get through the store.

Joe Spinella, an employee at Taffy’s for 31 years, remembers Taffy’s during this time.

“Taffy’s changed the way Sarasota dressed,” he says. He says one could always spot men dressed in Taffy’s at Van Wezel and on the streets.

One of Spinella’s favorite stories was when a man from the Midwest used to come in to the store and buy shirts for $250 each.

“He used to drive a tractor in cashmere sweaters,” laughs Spinella.

Spinella and all of the salesmen were responsible for tracking their customers’ measurements and preferences. And that’s something Taffy’s still does today, though Taffy’s ownership has changed hands a few times since then.

In the late ’70s to mid-’80s, timeshares were changing the face of Florida. Spinella and Battie both refer to these as changing the dynamic of the clientele. During that time, shoppers on St. Armands weren’t as willing to spend $3,000 in one store.

In 1984, the Tafeens wanted to split their time between Colorado and St. Armands, so they decided to sell the business to store manager Norm Albert. When Albert died unexpectedly, Jack Tafeen came back to Sarasota to help Albert’s wife, Bonnie, with the store.

Then the store was purchased by retail company Bean and Hester Inc. The company also owned Philips Menswear on Longboat Key and Carriage Clothiers on St. Armands Circle.

Jack Peffley, a man towering at 6 feet, 8 inches, could been seen at two of the company’s locations where he was manager. He eventually convinced the company’s owners to let him buy it — and he has been running it ever since.

Last year, Peffley moved the store two doors down from its longtime location on the Circle because “the old store was feeling a little outdated,” Peffley says. They started carrying younger apparel, such as 12 kinds of denim jeans, bright-colored Loud Mouth golf apparel and long-sleeved shirts with trimmed back cuffs.

“We felt we needed a more contemporary look to appeal to younger clientele,” Peffley says of the changes.

Though the storefront has changed, the Taffy’s today has the same outlook as it did from day one: stellar customer service and fine tailoring.

“We are known just like we were (back then) and that’s if you want something different, you go to Taffy’s,” Peffley says.

TAFFY’S TIMELINE
1962 – Taffy’s was founded
1984 – The Tafeens sell Taffy’s to store manager Norm Albert
1993 – Norm Albert dies unexpectedly; Bean and Hester Inc. purchases Taffy’s
2005 – Store Manager Jack Peffley and his wife, Nancy, purchase Taffy’s
2011 – Taffy’s moves from 14 S. Blvd. of the Presidents to 18 S. Blvd. of the Presidents (two doors down).
2012 – Taffy’s celebrates its 50th anniversary