Monkey Business

At the opening of the glitzy addition to Nordstrom's Bellevue Square store, the thoughts of Co-Chairman Jim Nordstrom turned to . . . monkeys.

When Nordstrom was a shoe store, it was a struggle to lure customers away from "the big guys" such as Frederick & Nelson, Nordstrom recalled.

So the Nordstrom brothers hit on a gimmick: live monkeys in the children's department. Once, Nordstrom recalled, when a Nordstrom shoe store was set to open in Yakima and his monkeys hadn't arrived, Nordstrom and his brother transported six "really filthy" people-hating monkeys (who all escaped in the store at one point, toppling shoe displays) across the mountains, driving all night to get them to the store in time for the grand opening.

They arrived in Yakima at 6 a.m. and were at the store by 7 a.m., to be greeted by the brother who had put out the call for help.

"Oh," Nordstrom recalls him saying. "I forgot to tell you. The monkeys showed up."