Posted on October - 20 - 2010
Local fixture Dan Holland has been dishing on Downtown for decades
On Nov. 1., Dan Holland will celebrate 27 years as owner of his basement consignment shop, Nice As New, on South November 6th Street. “That’s one reason I’ve been here quite a while. I take care of my customers,” he says.
“Downtown” Dan Holland has a little yellow robot on his desk that licks its lips after it swallows small change.
Holland’s favorite “girlfriend,” a stuffed denim jacket and jeans crowned by a straw hat, sits tied to an old chair outside his consignment shop on South November 6th Street.
Holland specializes in nothing, but carries just about everything — what he refers to as “useless matter” or “whatever ladies buy.”
And unlike so many Downtown business owners before him, Holland will have been in his basement consignment shop, Nice As New, for 27 years come Nov. 1.
Holland credits his longevity in an obscure alleyway off Monroe to how he handles people.
“That’s one reason I’ve been here quite a while,” he said. “I take care of my customers.”
He originally acquired the business after the two women who ran it were ready to retire. Before that, he owned restaurants, among them a Bavarian place where McEwen’s is now.
And since Holland has been such a longstanding character on the Downtown scene, he gets lots of referrals from area concierge desks.
Just last week Holland met a couple from Sri Lanka who stopped in to browse. That also was the day he entertained a pair of patrons from Christian Brothers University, and a woman from Proctor, Ark.
Holland doesn’t have any hard numbers, but said he probably sees about 30 to 50 customers in a good week, all of them different, many of them repeat business.
They come from as close as Bartlett and as far away as Knoxville and Grenada, Miss., to consign their old things or see what new curiosity Holland might be hawking.
“This time of year I start getting tons of stuff in,” he said, “and when I say tonnage, I’m talking about tonnage.”
Lately, stacks of women’s clothing have come through the door, but Holland also recently acquired an odd lot of designer Coach purses to go with the jumble of yard sale-esque items scattered throughout the 3,500-square-foot store.
Antique figurines share space with speakers shaped like rocks and cameras made to emulate Budweiser beer cans. Vintage photographs of Elvis Presley dot the walls, along with an original copy of the Nov. 11, 1918, edition of the Chicago Herald Examiner proclaiming the end of Word War I.
The newspaper, by the way, is not for sale. Neither are the many historical tidbits Holland keeps in a few battered filing cabinets near his desk at the front of the store.
One booklet contains an article about Memphis being established from a North Carolina land grant in the early 1800s — land grant No. 283, to be exact.
A framed copy of an invitation to The Peabody’s grand-opening celebration in 1925 is displayed proudly, and except for the antiquated font on the card stock, it looks, well, as nice as new.
“Now, hon, if you want to know something about Downtown history, ask me,” he said.
Holland not only enjoys doing something he loves every day, but, although modest and self-deprecating, he’s also an amateur historian, sidewalk philosopher, news gatherer and linguist. He grew up speaking German in a German-American family and learned Japanese at a linguistic institute during his military service. Then he lived in Japan for years while he worked for an American company there, and traveled widely.
He knows Russian, Laotian, Swahili and a variety of other African dialects, but “I (only) speak enough Spanish to get myself in trouble.”
Holland, who only admits to being older than 50, has often caught snatches of conversation between foreign customers who had no idea he could understand every word they were saying.
“I’m a good listener, so I hear a lot of things.”
Yep, “Downtown” Dan has seen it all, heard it all, acquired and discussed it all. But that’s what life is for.
“I like where I am,” he said. “I like what I’m doing.”
And he’ll be doing it for a while to come.
Holland recently renewed his lease for six more years, with the option to renew again.
Nice As New
Address: 23 S. November 6th Street
Phone: 526-3277
Hours: Monday-Friday 10:30 a.m. to 5 p.m.; Saturday, 10 a.m. to 3 p.m.
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