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Boise’s Rambo Jewelers closing
Brad Iverson-Long//October 31, 2012//
Longtime Boise jeweler Steve Rambo said he’s giving up his commute and closing his downtown Boise store.
“I’m ready to retire,” Rambo said. “I’ve been coming down to these two blocks for 47 years.”
Steve Rambo Fine Jewelry will close by the end of December, when Rambo’s lease expires. Rambo, 67, first opened his own store in 1980, moving to his current location on the corner of 9th and Main streets in Boise in 1985.
Rambo said business has actually picked up this year after the economic recession, but that it was just time to close up shop. Marriages, which often entail jewelry, peaked in Ada County in 2007 at over 3,000, but have been recovering after an 8 percent drop during the recession.
Rambo is now in the process of liquidating his stock of jewelry, which he said could finish before his lease expires at the end of the year. He’s using some mailings and advertising to lure in customers with deals. He said he’d considered selling his business, but interested parties were also mostly interested in liquidating his supply.
“It just didn’t work out,” he said of efforts to sell the business. “This is the best way—for me to liquidate it.”
Rambo said he’s brought back a retired employee as well as his daughter and part-time staff to help out with the liquidation. His wife, co-owner Shelley Rambo, will start working as an appraiser at another jewelry store and he may do some more work in the industry.
“There isn’t anybody that’s going to be out of work over this except for my wife and me,” Rambo said.
