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The Shack Says Good-Bye to Ash Grove

The Shack Says Good-Bye to Ash Grove

Posted by Sandy Higgins, CEO on 23rd Aug 2015

Wow!  8 years.  It's hard to believe The Crackerjack Shack has been operating out of Ash Grove, Missouri, for over 8 years now!  What started as a cottage business in the spare bedroom of our basement back in 2007, has turned into one of the most successful decorated apparel businesses in southwest Missouri.  Since the beginning, we have enjoyed having the core of our business operation be a part of the Ash Grove community.  As with all growing businesses, though, there comes a time to make difficult choices and sometimes go unexpected directions.

There have been so many changes since those early days in our basement, it's hard to remember sometimes that the business originally had no employees other than myself.  It's difficult sometimes to think about a time when our only employee worked "Tuesdays and Thursdays" (an inside joke among today's employees because every 2-day-per-week employee quickly becomes an every-day-per-week employee!)  

Then, we added that big (and a little bit scary) commercial embroidery machine that could stitch FOUR PIECES AT A TIME!  Our minds were blown away....at least at the time!  After a year or so, we were completely out of space, and screen printing began to take up a good portion of our sales, so it was time to grow again.  We added a screen printing department, and soon added a second press to that department.  And now, believe it or not, we are bursting at the seams again.  The time has come to take a deep breath, and do something some may think is the scariest thing to date - move our entire production operation!

Yes, that's right!  Sometime in September of this year, we will move our entire Ash Grove operation to the former Greene County Library location at 1252 E. Highway 60 in Republic, Missouri.  Yes, you read correctly, we are moving to Republic!

Along with this move, we will add an automatic screen printing press that will increase our capacity ten fold - with a capacity to add a SECOND automatic press 1-3 years down the road.  We will add a commercial conveyer dryer that will allow us to print not only regular screen printing, but water-based inks as well as discharge inks.  We will add more embroidery heads, and our square footage will nearly triple.  It's definitely an exciting BIG step into the future!

Before we post about our progress at our new facility, I wanted to take this time to publicly thank the people of Ash Grove for providing us with some of the BEST employees and customers an owner could ask for.  Since Matt and I moved here back in the early 1990's, we have called Ash Grove our home.  We have made lifelong friends here and have created memories that we will carry with us always.

As we welcome the new challenges ahead, we encourage you to come see us in your neighboring town of Republic or follow our progress on this blog and our Facebook page.  Ash Grove has been a part of our family for over 24 years in one way or another.  We will miss you, and we wish you nothing but prosperity and progress!