Video Transcription
Probably 30 years, I did not eat a Thanksgiving dinner at my house. We ate Thanksgiving dinner at the store because it was super busy day for us. We were open.
We're really looking forward to some free time.
I'm Terry Stewart, the previous owner of TW's Bait & Tackle in Nags Head, North Carolina on the wonderful Outer Banks, and we feel like we have one of the best tackle shops on the East Coast.
In the spring of 1981 I leased a very small shop and decided I was going to go into the fishing tackle business.
Business got a little bit better, a little bit better each year and it's been 40 years, but it didn't really seem like it.
My son, Justin, who's 31 right now, he grew up in a bassinet behind the counter at our Kitty Hawk location.
Even in elementary school, he was tying bottom rigs for us to sell in the store.
My daughter, who's also worked in the business, helps a lot with the purchasing.
You always think that your kids are going to take it over and continue running the family business for another 40 years with them, but it just wasn't necessarily what they wanted to do the rest of their life.
We had been thinking about selling for several years. We had meetings with family and talked it over and all came to an agreement and it just worked out perfectly for everybody.
I was told to be prepared because it could possibly take six, nine months, even a year to sell your business if you're
picky, like I was going to be with the new purchaser.
But we were able to pull it off in just a little bit under six months.
Getting to know the new owner has been great. It was very important to me that the new owner wanted to continue on with the name of as TW's bait and tackle.
We have a very, very good reputation, so I feel like I'm still part of it and I'm really looking forward to see how much he takes it into the future.
After being in business for 40 years, it's a little bit strange to sell your business.
This is what I've done every day for pretty much every day for the last 40 years, but it's been a change in a good way.
I still enjoy coming down to the store and visiting and talking to the new owner and talking to my employees.
I still enjoy doing that. I can't say that I'm necessarily to the point of missing it yet.
I might somewhere down the road, but it's been good that we've worked hard.
It's been good. We've been very fortunate. Been very lucky.
