May 24, 2011

Natalie’s Gifts To Change Focus This Summer, Will Keep Doors OpenBy Joseph HillenmeyerPalos.Patch.com

Natalie Grens more or less opened her business, Natalie’s Gifts & Closeouts, on impulse. Her husband and brother-in-law were helping their mother run a small gift store in Worth and while driving down Harlem Avenue she saw a vacancy.

“I called about it, got the details, said, ‘OK,’ and I rented it,” Grens explained of opening the store in the Tiffany Square shopping center 22 years ago. “I was enjoying the business and wanted to strike out on my own.”

Grens has had a bit of a wild ride since then.

“Business is not like it was, not at all,” said Grens, shaking her head, and agreeing that it’s partly due to the economy.

Natalie’s has been forced to adapt as trends come and go, and in many ways change the type of business the store does.

Most people probably have some recollection of Ty Inc.’s Beanie Babies. The stuffed animals were a craze in the last half of the 90’s and people paid top dollar and stood in long lines to get them. One of those lines was at Natalie’s.

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