Henry's TV & Appliance in East Vandergrift closing its doors in September

Henry “Butch” Yasczak and his wife, Margery, will never forget a Christmas Eve dinner in the mid-1970s.

The couple sat down to eat at Butch's parents' East Vandergrift home when the phone rang.

When Butch's father, Henry Sr., hung up, he surprised his son.

“My father told me, ‘Go down to the store. A customer needs a blender to give as a present; go sell it to him,' ” Yasczak said, standing behind the very counter from where he had sold the avocado-green blender more than 40 years ago.

The family lived a few houses down from the McKinley Avenue store that the Yaszaks owned — Henry's TV & Appliance.

“Back then,” Yasczak explained, “the store's number was also our home number. So if someone called the store, they also called the house.”

Paul and Cheryl Dezzutti of North Apollo have been customers at Henry's for almost half a century.

“Next month, we'll be married 44 years,” Cheryl Dezzutti said. “That means we've been customers there for 44 years.

“We've always had the best service there,” she said. “I'm not sure you'll be able to get that personal service anywhere else.”

That personal touch and commitment to its customers is why the impending closure of Henry's TV & Appliance has touched so many.

Because of age and wanting to spend their golden years traveling and socializing, the Yasczaks will officially stop selling new appliances in September.

The couple's son, Robert, 40, is unable to take over the store because of illness, and their daughter, Amanda, 37, is married with two children.

Butch Yasczak will continue to make house call repairs.

The store has been a part of East Vandergrift since 1947, when Butch Sr. began selling a little-known item called a television.

In those 69 years, the TV has changed drastically, as has East Vandergrift — Henry's is the last remaining storefront in the borough — but folks could always count on Henry's for an appliance, a maintenance call, or just a good conversation.

The store has three chairs sitting in its main room, which are usually occupied by folks who come by just to have a chat, making the store as much a social hall as a business.

The store also is known for its witty marketing.

The store never took itself too seriously, proclaiming it was still in the “same inconvenient location,” or that, “We cheat the other guy and pass the savings on to you.”

There from the beginning

Before Henry's was a Kiski Valley staple — even before most folks knew what a television was — the elder Henry Yasczak had a chance encounter that would help create the store.

“My father was in a jewelry store in downtown Pittsburgh and there was a man there, who ended up being Ross Siragusa, the founder of Admiral appliances,” said the younger Henry Yaszak about his father, who died in 1998. “Well, they got to talking and he asked my dad if he wanted to be involved in the business.

“And here we are now.”

The store has the first two televisions his dad sold.

The Motorola and Admiral sets, which resemble radios with a 5-inch screen imbedded in the front, went for $300 and $250, respectively, when they were sold in 1947.

Those aren't the only antiques you can see inside Henry's showroom. The store has hundreds of classic toys, vintage radios and toy trains.

Of course, the store, which stopped selling TVs in 2013, now is stocked with the latest washers, dryers and refrigerators.

Bittersweet

For almost all of his life, Henry's has been another home for Butch Yasczak, so it will obviously be quite an adjustment when the store closes its doors for good.

“It's very painful,” said Yasczak, who used to sleep under the store's main desk after kindergarten.

Margie Yasczak said she agrees the closure will be hard but knows her husband needs a break.

“I'm excited,” she said. “He'd work forever if he could.”

“We've never been able to go anywhere without worrying about this place,” Yasczak added. “We want our customers to know we're appreciative of their loyalty for all these years.

‘We got close to a lot of people because of this place.”

Hidden ability

Everyone knows Butch Yasczak as the friendly salesman and repairman. But they probably don't know about his hidden ability to keep work flowing into the shop.

“He has this uncanny ability to make people's appliances break,” his wife joked. “We'd be driving down the street and he'd say something like, ‘I wonder how their TV's doing.'

“Lo and behold: a few days later they'd call, saying they needed it repaired. “

Butch Yasczak had to interject.

“I didn't mean to do it,” he said with a smile. “But, for whatever reason, it happened often. It was out of my hands.”

R.A. Monti is a freelance writer.