A fifth-generation family retailer that turned small Midwestern towns into a 125-year fashion institution.
Dateline · Collinsville, Illinois
Most retailers do not live to see fifteen years. Glik’s has seen more than a hundred and twenty-five. Founded in 1897 by Joseph Glik — who began by selling dry goods from a horse-drawn wagon in the St. Louis area — the company has grown into a chain of roughly 70 boutique fashion stores spread across 11 Midwestern states, still owned and run by the same family, now in its fifth generation.
What Glik’s does is straightforward to describe and hard to sustain: it buys and sells clothing, footwear and accessories, curating national and boutique brands for shoppers who live in places the big chains tend to skip. The company calls itself a “denim destination,” and denim is indeed the spine of the assortment, but the stores also carry men’s and women’s apparel, shoes, handbags, jewelry and the sort of trend-forward gift items that keep a small-town boutique feeling current. An e-commerce site, built on Shopify Plus, extends that assortment beyond the physical footprint.
The through-line is a stated mission the family repeats often: to “enrich the communities we serve as a fashion leader to our customers and as a responsible employer to our family of associates.” It is a plain sentence, and the plainness is the point.
Be the best specialty store in each community we serve.— Glik’s vision statement
Who it serves
Glik’s customers are value- and trend-conscious shoppers — women, men and young adults — who live in small and mid-sized Midwestern communities. Some of the towns Glik’s operates in have populations as low as 4,700. That is a deliberate choice, not an accident of history. Where national specialty retailers cluster in dense metros and enclosed malls, Glik’s built its map in Illinois, Michigan, Nebraska, Kansas, Minnesota and beyond.
The problem this solves is quiet but real: a shopper in a town of a few thousand people should not have to drive two hours to find current denim, a decent pair of sandals, or a national brand like The North Face. Glik’s brings a boutique-grade, curated assortment to communities that are usually served, if at all, by mass merchants or catalogs.
Because the stores are embedded in the towns they serve, the relationship runs deeper than a transaction. The staff — what the company calls its “family of associates,” roughly 700 people — often know their customers by name. That familiarity is the product as much as the clothes are.
It is also a defensible one. Personalized service and local trust are difficult for a distant e-commerce giant to replicate, and they are expensive for a national chain to fake.
Products & services
Boutique women’s apparel anchored by a deep denim wall — Judy Blue, Silver Jeans and seasonal collections.
Casual and action-sports labels including Hurley, Volcom, Billabong and DC Shoes for the younger shopper.
Birkenstock, sneakers and boots — footwear rounds out the head-to-toe assortment.
Handbags, jewelry, hats and trending gift items like Owala bottles and Simply Southern.
A Shopify Plus storefront at gliks.com that carries the boutique assortment nationwide.
The brands Glik’s lands say a lot about its buying muscle. A specialty store rooted in towns of a few thousand people carrying North Face, Roxy, Burton and Birkenstock is not a given — it is the result of decades of vendor relationships and disciplined merchandising.
The model
The business is classic specialty retail: Glik’s buys curated national and boutique brands and resells them at retail margin across its ~70 stores and its website. Revenue comes from repeat local relationships and a merchandising eye tuned to what a Midwest customer actually wants each season. There is no venture funding and no outside ownership on the record — the company is privately held by the Glik family, with estimated annual revenue in the low tens of millions.
Deliberately serving smaller communities the national chains overlook — less competition, deeper loyalty.
A boutique assortment and a strong denim identity, rather than trying to be a full-line department store.
Personalized, name-you-know service that distant e-commerce and big-box chains struggle to match.
128 years of compounding trust — the rare retail asset that cannot be bought or rushed.
How is it different from competitors like Buckle, Maurices or Zumiez? Scale and geography. Glik’s is intentionally smaller and more local, and it treats that as a feature. Its rivals chase malls and metros; Glik’s owns the Main Streets.
The record
Joseph Glik begins selling dry goods in the St. Louis area, launching what becomes The Glik Company.
A second location opens in Madison, Illinois, beginning the chain’s expansion.
The Granite City store is renamed Glik’s as the brand solidifies.
The company experiments with formats like “Glik’s for Guys,” “Glik’s Ltd.” and discount chains.
Discount and sports spin-offs are wound down as Glik’s concentrates on its specialty apparel model.
Cousins Jeremy and Elliot Glik enter leadership as buyers, extending family ownership to a fifth generation.
Glik’s celebrates 125 years — recognized as the 14th oldest retailer in the US — with ~70 stores in 11 states.
Expertise & culture
Today the company is led by president and CEO Jeff Glik, a great-grandson of the founder, alongside his brother Jim Glik, vice president. Jeff heads women’s merchandising; Jim runs the men’s side. Under the two brothers, Glik’s added more than 60 stores and launched its online business. In 2020 the fifth generation arrived: cousins Jeremy Glik (women’s buyer) and Elliot Glik (young men’s buyer).
The family enforces an unusual rule — before a family member can join the business, they must earn retail experience elsewhere. Jeff himself bought women’s fashion for Foley’s in Houston first. It is a hedge against complacency, and it shows in the merchandising discipline.
Only about a quarter of businesses survive past fifteen years, and fewer than 3% of fourth-generation family businesses keep going. Glik’s is on its fifth.— per Bureau of Labor Statistics data cited in the company’s 125th-anniversary materials
The four values
Giving back
Worth knowing
Founded in 1897, Glik’s predates the modern zipper (1913) and the Ford Model T.
Founder Joseph Glik sold merchandise from a horse-drawn wagon.
Some Glik’s stores sit in communities smaller than a single big-city neighborhood.
In the 1980s the family ran discount spin-offs including “$10 for Less” and “$20 for Less.”
Family members must work retail elsewhere before they can join the business.
Questions
Founded in 1897, it is more than 125 years old and ranked the 14th oldest retailer in the United States.
Headquartered in Collinsville, Illinois, with roughly 70 stores across 11 Midwestern states plus an online shop.
The family-owned Glik Company, now in its fifth generation. Jeff Glik is president/CEO; brother Jim Glik is VP.
Judy Blue, Silver Jeans, Birkenstock, The North Face, Roxy, Hurley, Volcom, Simply Southern and more — with a strong denim focus.
Through “Give Back Tuesday” each store donates a portion of sales to local nonprofits; it has also funded community parks.
Yes — gliks.com carries the boutique assortment nationwide, on top of the physical stores.