EVENTS AT BACHENDORF’S
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awrence Bock, president of three-store chain Bachendorf’s Jewelers, was inducted into the National Jeweler Retailer Hall of Fame on June 4 at the Wynn Las Vegas in the Multi-Store Independent category. Upon his induction, the Dallas-area retailer joined the ranks of other highly regarded, formerly inducted multi-store retailers as Bob Rottenberg of Long’s Jewelers in Massachusetts and Steve Polacheck’s of Polacheck’s Jewelers in California. “It’s a real honor,” he says of his selection to the Retailer Hall of Fame. “We work hard every day.” Bock’s experience in the jewelry business stretches back to his teenage days when he did “a little bit of everything” around the family’s store. He came on full time at Bachendorf’s after graduating from college in 1981, helping with back-office duties and organizing the watch department. Three decades later, Bock presides over three Texas stores—two in Dallas and one in Plano—and says that, at this point, the jewelry business has just become part of him: “When you’ve been around the whole game for this long, it just kind of gets in your blood. I love it. I love working with jewelry.” But Bock also acknowledges that the industry isn’t the same as it used to be, particularly as it pertains to one area that holds a special place in his family’s heritage—diamonds. Bock’s grandfather, Abram Bock, started designing and manufacturing jewelry as an apprentice in 1900 in St. Petersburg, Russia, and later moved to Memel, Germany. In 1939, Abram's jewelry business was seized by the Nazis, and Abram and his family were
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forced into slave labor at the Kovno ghetto and subsequently sent to the Dachau concentration camp. Abram, his son, Harry, and one daughter, Ali, survived and immigrated to Dallas in 1947 to be near family. Abram opened a jewelry repair shop and, leveraging his diamond-trading connections in Belgium, eventually began selling diamonds. Harry Bock helped his father grow this business and started his own company, The Harry Bock Company, which owns and operates Bachendorf’s Jewelers. He chose the different name for his retail store in order to keep it separate from the Bock business. “The diamond business was a lot of fun, collecting the stones, giving beautiful things to people that appreciated them,” Lawrence Bock says. Today, though, the stones have become too commoditized, thanks in part to the Internet, he explains. It’s caused them to lose a little of their luster and hurt people’s understanding of the value of a diamond. At Bachendorf’s, the store has adapted to some of the new technology deemed by many to be necessary components of retail today. Links to the Bachendorf’s Facebook page and Twitter feed can be found on Bachendorfs.com. But in homage to his father, Bock, who runs the store along with his brothers Steven and David, said he has tried to keep the business as traditional as possible. The store relies heavily on what it has ever since it first opened its doors in the late 1970s—helping long-time customers celebrate special occasions and quality product. “It’s not like you’re selling something that’s going to last 30 or 60 or 90 days," Bock says. "We sell jewelry that’s going to last generations."
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RETAILER HALL OF FAME PROFILE: LAWRENCE BOCK