ABOUT CHEAPTRX
Michael Mahler & Frank Neil started CheapTRX in the summer of 1990 after spending a week in Chicago visiting friends. Frank was working for the now defunct Famous-Barr as a Visual Merchandiser for not much pay and even less recognition for his efforts, and he was ready for a change. Michael was working in Multi-Media for a design firm called Design Network.
The job consisted of lots of stress, some travel and a load of other headaches your typical corporate atmosphere. Both being somewhat talented in their chosen fields but tired of the stress and aggravation attached to working for someone else, they had an itch for something new. While visiting Chicago they came across a little resell-it shop the specialized in painted furniture and faux painting. As most queens will do... we looked at each other and said to ourselves, "We can do this, only better!" ... you know, you've done it too, so don't even go there...
Well we did. As soon as we returned to St. Louis, wes spent the next six months picking up cast-off furniture from garage sales, flea markets and alleys. and began painting and reupholstering ourselves silly. We decided to go into amore creative and fun direction than our friends in Chicago, less faux, more fun! We also had lots of collectables from the 1920's and '30's that could also be used as additional inventory to start off with..
CheapTRX was born on a shoestring, our first location was on Cherokee Street (antique road). We were quirky, fun and most importantly DIFFERENT from anyone else on our street. Soon we were asked to do custom work on clients furniture that they already had but wanted to give new life to the. We also started selling local artists work on consignment. We now had collectables, painted furniture, jewelry, and a gallery wall for local photography and paintings. Lots of press coverage began to follow, helping our plan along to rule the world!
Soon we felt that we needed a bigger space with more visibility. South Grand was just starting to be reborn and with some encouragement from a friend we found our current location at 3211 South Grand in July of 1992. A year later we decided to help a friend, Aly out with starting her own business and suggested that she put it next door to ours. She was selling high energy/smart drinks at raves. She had enough start up funding for product, but not enough to really get started. We decided to rent the space, renovate it for her and sublease it so she could get started with what little funds she had. It was a beautiful spacey vision of pink and chrome with neon accents of course! Unfortunately just before opening the smart bar, she fell and did some serious damage to her arm and TRXAnx (TRX Annex) was born.
After about a year and a half of struggling to make it pay for itself we sold it. Like Kenny says, "Ya gotta know when to hold em know when to fold em"... After having moved to Grand... we had also changed our focus a bit. Soon we started carrying additional gift and card lines, including (shock) gay ones! Collectables were no longer our focus and frankly Michael was getting tired of schlepping paint cans and scaffolding around. We even briefly toyed with the idea of moving to Seattle... but came to our senses. Eventually we met Stan Schober who was piercing out of a shop in the CWE. It was soon closing and he needed a new shop to work out of, he had a clientelle that we wanted... viola! we got into body piercing. Some of our friends probably thought we had lost our minds, but it seemed somehow like a natural expansion to our quirky shop to start perforating people.
As is typical with any small business, there have been lots of the old two steps forward, one step back routine. It ain't easy kids! Somehow we've been able to keep hanging in there. We have an extremely loyal customer base that we wouldn't trade for the world... and a great staff that any small business would be envious for. Three years ago William Spencer took over the reigns of the body piercing business and added tattooing to his repertoire. What was once an apartment above CheapTRX is now a state of the art tattooing salon that we are quite proud of.
With the addition of the tattoo area we also expanded into one of our basement areas creating the "Cage". There we carry a full line of adult toys, lubes, DVD's tobacco accessories, lingerie, wigs. The spring of 2008 holds even more at CheapTRX with yet another major expansion to the store! We are now in our 17th year, thank you for loyal support, without you we wouldn't be here.