Chubby & Tubby makes big move
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For years, old-fashioned Chubby & Tubby defiantly stood its ground as modern discount stores arrived on the scene.
But now the three-store chain that was founded in Seattle in 1947 by a couple of big guys is making a big move - from White Center to the Renton Highlands.
For Chubby & Tubby, that is a major move. Its stores usually stay put, inexpensive- Christmas-tree season after season.
The one in White Center had been there more than 40 years.
The Chubby & Tubby stores on Rainier Avenue South near Franklin High School and Aurora Avenue North near Green Lake also have been neighborhood landmarks for decades. They also are in older buildings in older neighborhoods with aisles packed with a wide variety of merchandise - including tools, clothes, sporting goods, house wares and garden supplies - a throwback to general-store days.
Chubby & Tubby's new location in the Renton Highlands is in a large, fresh-looking strip mall in a suburban setting.
"It looks good," said Carl Kelley, the White Center store manager, who yesterday was cleaning up the old store. It closed last week.
"But you're right, it doesn't look like Chubby and Tubby," added his assistant manager, Melanie Veltman.
Kelley and Veltman will move to the new store, which is expected to open in a couple of weeks, she said.
The store could almost be a Chubby boutique, with its address at 4110-A N.E. Fourth St. It's smaller than its White Center store and attached to a much larger building in a commercial area near the intersection of Fourth and Union Avenue Northeast.
Why the move?
"We were hoping for more business on a busier corner," Veltman said.
Chubby & Tubby arrives in Renton as the city is undergoing a retail boom, said Sue Carlson, the city's economic-development director. Renton collected $15 million in retail sales tax last year, up from $7.5 million in 1993, she said.
The Renton Highlands, she added, is an area in transition from an older blue-collar suburb to a more upscale community with new homes going for $300,000 to $500,000.
That's not the traditional Chubby & Tubby neighborhood, she said, but she figures the store with its unique name and reputation for value will do well there.
"I think it fills a niche," Carlson said. "Certainly that type of store is becoming scarcer and scarcer, and there is a need for it."
In White Center, a diverse, working-class community that straddles Seattle's southern city limits, many are mourning the loss of the old store.
While a new Walgreens drugstore is planned for the site, it can't replace Chubby & Tubby, said Mel Morris, owner of the White Center Pharmacy across the street.
"It's sad losing Chubby's because everybody shopped there," Morris said. "It has a universal clientele."
Chubby & Tubby was started as an Army-surplus store in a Quonset hut on Rainier Avenue South by Irv "Chubby" Frese and Woody "Tubby" Auge, who were nicknamed by Frese's wife in honor of their large builds.
Auge died in 1989 and Frese in 1997. The store is still owned by the Frese family.
Bill Kossen can be reached at 206-464-2331 or bkossen@seattletimes.com.