Staff photo.
Lynda Rothoff, owner of the Korduroy Krocodile, retired Feb. 29 and closed her business of 39 years.
Lynda Rothoff still remembers her first week in business at The Korduroy Krocodile, the consignment shop she owned on Linden Avenue for 39 years.
She didn’t have many customers, but she needed to sell a certain amount of items each day to stay profitable. But no one was buying anything, so she bought things for herself from her store each day.
“I remember coming home the fourth or fifth day and telling my husband, ‘I didn’t have to buy anything today!’” she said, laughing.
This was in 1980, and Rothoff said consignment shopping wasn’t popular back then. For the first year, some customers were embarrassed to shop at the Korduroy Krocodile.
“I had people that would come to the back of the shop and come in the back door because they didn’t want people to know they were shopping consignment,” she said. “Or that they were even bringing clothes for sale.... Then suddenly, it became OK.”
Even her son Brian, who was in ninth grade when she opened the shop, “wasn’t too sure about used clothes” — until one day when she picked him and his friends up from school with a stack of polo shirts in the back seat.
“They just went crazy over the shirts,” she said. “So that was it— he wore polo shirts after that continuously.”
She started out selling children’s, women’s and men’s clothes, but she stopped selling men’s clothes after some years.
One thing she loved most about being in business was the people, she said.
“I used to say I was really shy,” she said. “But as I got into the work, people would just talk to me and tell me everything about their life. My employees and friends said, ‘This is like a therapy house.’”
And it was. People who had a bad day at work would come by her shop just for a laugh, Rothoff said.
One thing she learned during her 39 years in business is that everyone is the same, she said — no matter what gender, race or religion that person is.
“I love them all,” she said. “I’ve made wonderful, lifelong friends, and I’ve watched their kids grow up. And then their kids were buying from me.”
She had one person walk up to her at Publix a few months ago. “Are you Lynda from the Korduroy Krocodile?” the person asked. Rothofftold her yes.
“And she just hugged me, and I remembered her after she told me her name,” Rothoff said. “And she said, ‘You helped me when my husband left me and I had four young kids. You gave me the dignity to pay a dollar or two for something instead of paying eight or nine. You clothed my children for all those years and helped me out.’”
The Korduroy Krocodile never made Rothoff rich, but she got rich in things other than money, she said.
The 72-year-old Homewood resident made the decision to retire in February after almost four decades in the business. She has a few physical problems, and she needed knee surgery. She said God kept telling her it was time to close. Feb. 29 was her last day in business, and Rothoff said she has since been missing her store while being stuck at home due to COVID-19 concerns.
“I have thoroughly enjoyed my job,” she said. “My employees are family. I don’t think of them as employees — they’re just family.”
