People remembered. At the Palace's grand reopening, generations of
families showed up. One man in his 90s, nearly blind, came and
asked to ride the old delivery bike, just as he had decades before
when he worked at the Palace. They gave him a free ice cream
instead.
Momentum was clearly building. Drawing people to downtown, of
course, was vital, but so too was keeping them in Tuscumbia to shop
and to eat - and even to live. Robbins began to buy available
buildings, fix them up, and either turn them into apartments or
lure good entrepreneurs to launch businesses. The first new
businessperson to arrive was Leslie Cassady, owner of a women's
clothing store named after her grandmother, Audie Mescal. Cassady
had long wanted to open a boutique featuring eclectic fashions, but
she'd had trouble getting financing. "I took my business plan to
several banks in the area, but they considered it too much of a
risk," says Cassady, as she stands in her hip, brightly lit store
that would fit in nicely in
Los Angeles or New York.
Robbins knew how to handle the banks. As he has with other
entrepreneurs he wanted to bring to town, Robbins guaranteed
Cassady's loan. It's been a good investment. Cassady's sales have
been brisk, particularly as word about her unique offerings has
spread throughout the region.
Cassady's is exactly the kind of store Robbins is looking to bring
to Tuscumbia: one that sells things people can't get anywhere else.
"Come in here with a specialty store," he says. "If you don't have
something special or one of a kind - stuff you can't buy at
Wal-Mart - don't think about putting it over here."
The roster of stores that count Robbins as their landlord follows
that philosophy: There's a dress shop, Promenade, that specializes
in outfits for proms and pageants; a piano store, called Romans
Piano; and good restaurants, including the Pilot House, where fresh
seafood is flown in daily from the
Gulf of Mexico, and an upscale
Italian restaurant and bakery, Ragazza, owned by Robbins's
daughter.