“I have a lot of family in the business—two brothers that are clock repairmen,” Bartholomew said. “Dad is still working on clocks. I have a cousin that owns another clock shop in [the Dallas area].”
While Promenade Clocks does sell clocks for walls, desks, mantles and practically anywhere else they can go, Bartholomew said the repair services it offers are what have helped to make 2019 and 2020 the best years since he took over.
“There are fewer repairmen out there,” he said. “We’ve done a quality job for less [and] quicker for so long that people keep coming back, and they keep telling their friends. Word of mouth is probably the biggest part of our business.”
The business does all of its repair work in-house, Bartholomew said, but while it is easy for a customer to bring in a watch and mantle clock needing repair, large grandfather clocks are not as easy to transport.
“A big part of the business is going out to people’s homes and working on their grandfather clocks,” Bartholomew said, noting that he regularly works on clocks that the shop sold in the past. “We might not see them for 10 or 15 years, but they [usually] come back to the place they bought it from.”
In addition to perusing the selection of clocks offered at the business, customers who are in the shop on the hour can listen to the chimes, bells and even cuckoos that go off to mark the new time. However, because he works in the shop all day and has two grandfather clocks at home, Bartholomew said he rarely even notices the sounds anymore.
“When you’re waking up in the morning and you’re listening for it and deciding if you should get out of the bed or not, that’s when you hear it,” he said. “It’s just a nice, gentle [push] that it’s time to get up.”
Promenade Clocks
300 N. Coit Road, Ste. 158, Richardson
972-644-3979
www.promenadeclocks.com
Hours: Mon.-Sat. 10 a.m.-5 p.m., closed Sun.
