As of January 1st, there will be new ownership for Ben’s Five and Dime in Perry, as Jay and Jan Pattee have sold the downtown pillar to Andrea Tunink.
Tunink says working at Ben’s was her first job as a teenager, and she’s excited that everything came full circle. She told Raccoon Valley Radio that the process of her purchasing the variety store began three years ago, as the Pattees considered retirement. At that time, the couple decided they weren’t quite ready to say goodbye to the business they had been running for decades. However, Tunink says things changed this past March. “Unfortunately, they had the smoke damage in the spring, so that kind of led them to rethink the situation again. And they called me up, and we started talking again through the summer. So here we are!”
The Pattees will continue owning and operating the Ben’s in Panora and will also maintain their residence above the Perry store. All operations in Perry will now be handled by Tunink, though, and she has plans for how she can help the store grow. “My focus on this first year is really to keep rebuilding it. We’re not quite where we were before the fire, it’s a little bit slim in some areas. But that’s my goal, is to really beef up the inventory and get to where we were.”
To learn more about the sale of Ben’s Five and Dime in Perry, click the link below to listen to the Perry Fareway Let’s Talk Dallas County program with Tunink and Perry Chamber of Commerce Director Lynsi Pasutti.