Golden Hand Jewellery gives Main Street block the Midas Touch

Hey there, time traveller!
This article was published 22/03/2021 (1679 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

Any good jeweller can spot a diamond in the rough.

That was the case in 1983, when Czeslaw “Chester” Szurlej, a recent immigrant to Winnipeg from Poland, saw that a building near the intersection of Main Street and Selkirk Avenue was up for sale. In Poland, for his skills, Szurlej was known as zlota raczka, a term translating to “golden hand,” so that’s what he called the shop at 955 Main St: Golden Hand Jewellery.

Thirty-seven years later, Szurlej, now retired but still involved in the family business, spotted yet another gem just a few doors down, past the Fish Gallery, where a strip of four units at the corner of the street was mostly vacant and collecting dust. Its longest standing tenant, a beloved diner called Connie’s Corner, had closed down a few years earlier, and a hodge-podge of other small businesses — a music shop specializing in accordions, a hairdresser, a tanning salon — had come and gone in the other units. A potential buyer backed out, and the strip was back on the market in 2019.

“My dad told me, it would be a good idea to buy it and some day move the store in there,” said Paul Szurlej, who listened to his dad. They took possession in March 2020, buying the building for $237,000 and committing to refurbish and renovate the property. Szurlej formerly worked in real estate, so he knew what he was getting into.

“We saw potential in this building to make it great,” he said. “We needed more room and this was the perfect fit.”

The building was in somewhat rough shape, said Szurlej: the siding looked dated, the windows were old, and the interior wasn’t much better. A new roof was installed. The back parking area, big enough to fit 18 cars, was cleaned up, and on the inside, new ceilings and floors were installed, along with a fresh coat of paint.

The most noticeable upgrade, however, was to the exterior: new windows and doors were installed, along with acrylic stucco, cultured stone and a heightened facade. From the street, the strip looks like a completely new building, with work nearly wrapped up. The shop should be moving a few metres north in the coming months, assuming permits go through.

For Szurlej, who works at the shop with a staff of 11, including his brother, his wife, his father, and his two daughters — Alyssa, a masterful laser technician, and Savannah, a marketing whiz who Paul credits with boosting sales even through the pandemic — reinvesting in the North End was an avowed passion.

“We’ve been here for almost 40 years, and we want to help make the area even better,” he said. “I care about Main Street. I grew up here. If I could buy all the buildings and help them, I would.”

Misconceptions about Main Street often neglect to mention the businesses which continue to invest in the area, says Astrid Lichti of the North End BIZ, herself the owner of Cosmopolitan Florist. Many long-standing businesses aside from Golden Hand have expanded their own footprints in recent years, including Cosmopolitan and the nearby Bird Shop & Aquariums Pet Store; others continue to invest in exterior upgrades like improved lighting through grants administered by the North End Community Renewal Corporation. There’s major appeal to doing business in the neighbourhood, she said.

Those misconceptions also often neglect that the section of Main contains many businesses dating back three to six decades, she said. “Sometimes, we might not be successful in generating outside interest, but people here know the area’s charm, not only its challenges,” she said.

Lichti said she was excited to see the strip at the corner of Main and Selkirk being bought and refurbished. “That corner is a historical corner, at a historical intersection,” she said. “To have that empty wouldn’t reflect well on us as a business improvement zone or a community.

“Now, it makes that corner look beautiful,” she added. “It’s even more unique and charming that it’s being done by someone who’s already here. You have to remember, they grew up here. To me, that’s a success story.”

When the deal closed and the pandemic began, Szurlej admits he was worried to have just made such a sizable investment. “We weren’t sure what we could do,” he said. His daughter started an online shop, expanding the store’s reach tenfold, and loyal customers were still supporting Golden Hand, which sells everything from basic jewelry to what can only be classified as serious bling.

Once the store moves into its new storefront, which doubles the floor space of its former location, Szurlej said the business will only continue to grow. Plus, there will be enough room for all the employees to work unrestrained, even the family dogs, as well as the patriarch who started it all.

“He still comes in a few hours a day,” Paul said of his father. “This store is his baby, and he’s fortunate to watch it grow with his grandchildren working here. We always appreciate his advice.”

ben.waldman@freepress.mb.ca