OREGON – For more than four decades, Sweeny’s Outfitters has been a successful western-themed business in the Manitowoc, Wisconsin area.

Owner Gary Barnes had a store there from 1981 to 2001, then he moved it to a family farm he purchased in nearby Valders, Wisconsin, in 2002. There also was a mobile unit he would take to rodeos, county fairs and music festivals.

That all changed last spring when the COVID-19 pandemic took hold. Business dried up.

Barnes’ girlfriend, Oregon resident Pam Wright, had a potential solution.

“COVID canceled all of our events last year,” Barnes said. “This farm location is on a little blacktop road, and we were getting absolutely no traffic down there.

“Pam and I have known each other for quite a few years, and she understands this industry. She’s got horses, and she was telling us about how this store could do pretty well down here [in Oregon]. There’s no store like this in the area. Why don’t you come down here and try it?”

After scouting out some different locations, Barnes set up shop at 111 S. Fourth St. He opened for business Dec. 9, with just a few social media posts to spread the word. Almost immediately, the store was a hit.

“My experience has been when you open up a new location somewhere, you have to spend thousands of dollars to tell the community, and then you’ve got to wait weeks or months for the community to come in,” Barnes said. “It was literally days after we opened that door, we had a stream of people coming in. They’re going home and telling others, so we’re getting that second wave now that’s rolling in.

“January is a very slow month. Traditionally, a free-standing store does a very small percent of what they do in December. We are going to be much higher than that. The way I forecast it, this has nothing but an upside here.”

Western-themed items are the backbone of the store. It has a wide variety of men’s and women’s leather boots, as well as belts, hats and other apparel.

He also sells saddles and tack on consignment.

His store has wider appeal than to just horse enthusiasts, however, Barnes noted.

“The biker crowd likes our inventory. If we’re here in the spring when the bikes start coming out, we’re going to go after that crowd a little bit more,” he said. “Right now I don’t have all of the inventory I’d want for that. It’s kind of a general group right now.

“We’ve got people coming in buying our southwestern housewares. We’ve got seven or eight different artists that have things in here. There are people that have craft items. It gets to be quite a broad spectrum that we can attract.”

Indeed, the question is how long will Sweeny’s Outfitters remain in the downtown: Barnes’ lease is literally day-by-day. His plan is to go back to Valders, where he has three children, grandchildren and lifelong friends, once COVID-19 slows down and business gets back to normal.

Ideally, he’ll find someone capable of running the business in Oregon.

“Now you’re talking about two locations, and now you’re talking about trying to find somebody that can, part-time at least, run this store,” Barnes said. “That’s the biggest challenge, finding a qualified person that you can count on to make this thing work when I’m not here. There’s business here to be had.”

Sweeny’s Outfitters is open from 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. Wednesday through Friday., and you can find the Wisconsin store’s inventory on Facebook. Call 920-946-5088 or email sweenysoutfitters@gmail.com to learn more.