Apr 1, 2017 5 min read

WAYNESBURG – It’s 10 a.m. on a Monday, and Vickie Bruno, owner of Mickey’s Mens Store, is ringing up the day’s first sale of work boots for a customer who is accompanied by another man. In the midst of the transaction, they are asking for directions to a CONSOL Energy work site somewhere in the western part of Greene County.

“They must not be from around here,” she said after the men left the store with her directions, as she noted the major presence of CONSOL in the county, for both mining and natural gas projects.

The number of working people passing through the store at 3 E. High St. is steady, a flow that began in the early 1980s, first from those working in the mining industry, and in recent years, from workers in Greene County’s natural gas industry, which in addition to CONSOL, sees heaving drilling activity from a number of other oil and gas production companies.

And on any given day, she said, she can expect to sell a half-dozen pair of work boots, including metatarsal models, which offer additional protection for toes and the metatarsal bones that make up the foot.

Mickey’s, named for Bruno’s father, the late Mickey Bruno, began 50 years ago, in 1967, when he went into business for himself at 8 W. High St., selling suits, sports coats, ties and other accessories.

Mickey Bruno started in the men’s clothing business in Waynesburg, working for Carl Spragg in 1949, later working for the Calvin Heasley family until purchasing his business.

The biggest change came in 1979, when he moved the business to a larger location across the street at 3 E. High St. Around the same time, he began adding work clothes, which over the years, came to dominate the store’s inventory.

Mickey and his wife, Natica, had four children, John, Vickie, Angela and Kerry. All reside in Waynesburg with the exception of Angela, who lives in Pittsburgh.

Mickey Bruno died in March 2004, leaving the business to Vickie and John, who had both worked in the store since they were teenagers. They left intact the working clothes niche their father had developed, which turned out to be a prudent move, as people made the move to more casual modes of dress and much of the county’s workforce continued to demand clothes suited to heavy duty work.

“There were a number of other men’s working stores in town, but they just went out of business” over the years, Vickie said last week.

After running the business since his father’s death, John Bruno retired in January, leaving Vickie as owner and president of the business. She is assisted by her brother Kerry, who with his wife, April, also operate Bruno and Bruno, a full-service salon and photography studio in Waynesburg. Mickey’s staff also includes full-time salesperson Kelly Dulaney and part-timer Sandi King.

Today, the big brand name in the two-story store is U.S.-based work clothes-maker Carhart, with its shirts, pants, sweatshirts and jackets for men and women as well as its line of flame-resistant, or FR clothing, designed for people working in the natural gas industry.

“We carry more Carhart than anything else,” Vicki said, estimating that the store has the largest Carhart inventory within a 100-mile radius. “When the gas and oil business started, we expanded into FR clothing,” she said. When it was first introduced, it was offered as a special order item.

“But people came in and said, ‘I need it now,'” she said. By the time the gas industry boom was at its peak several years ago, “over a few years, our business tripled,” Vickie said.

The irony, she added, was that John had actually mulled closing the store just before Greene County became a major work site for CONSOL and other companies that began to tap extensively into the Marcellus Shale strata for natural gas.

While acknowledging that activity in oil and gas has slowed down, she said it appears the industry is again on the rise. “The demand for FR is starting to come back,” she said.

Even while she awaits a more robust rebound, Vickie is stalwart that working clothes and boots – the store also carries several other brands of jeans and casual clothing for men and women – will remain the store’s bread and butter.

“We don’t sell suits anymore,” she said, adding that while she has received “five or six” inquiries about suits recently, she doesn’t’ envision the store ever returning to dress-up mode.

Like many small business operators, Vickie believes that keeping up with changing trends is what keeps her store thriving.

“You have to change with the times,” she said.

The proof of that belief is embedded in what the store sells the most – work clothes and boots.

She estimates that on average, the store sells six pair of work boots a day.

And while acknowledging that other area chain retail stores carry portions of the Carhart line, it isn’t nearly as deep or as wide as what Mickey’s offers.

And as an independent store owner, Vickie notes that she’s free to add other styles of Carhart as she anticipates demand for them.

“If the bigger (chain) stores don’t have something, we’ll go get it.” I can order and have it here within a week’s time.

“Because I own the store, I can order in the inventories I want.”