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On the left, Jim and Shanie Joynes recently sold Joynes Ben Franklin to Jessica and Tyler Dean. Jessica is holding Oliver, age three, and Tyler is holding Asher. Photo courtesy of Tyler Dean
It’s going to be strange to go into Joynes Ben Franklin and not see a member of the Joynes family working the floor, but that will soon be the case because another local family, Tyler and Jessica Dean, have purchased the 80-year-old business from Jim and Shanie Joynes.
Jim announced the sale on Facebook over the New Year weekend.
“Joynes Department Store and Ben Franklin in Grand Marais, Minnesota. Eighty years, one family, four generations. I write this final post proudly. Admittedly, it is also extremely emotional.
“In December of 1941, my grandparents Howard and Rosemary Joynes started our family’s retail journey. They purchased the P.E. Alm Store, which was located across the avenue from our current location, on the corner now referred to as the Joynes parking lot. In 1955, the couple built and relocated to our current location. The history is rich and the stories are many. We often hear words like destination, tradition, and iconic.”
No transaction details have been released, but Tyler said he hopes the public will see the sale as “seamless and smooth.”
Following Howard and Rosemary into the business was their son Richard (Dick) and his wife, Margaret (Skip) Joynes. Howard, who was passionate about his store, worked until he was 94. He greeted customers with enthusiasm and warmth right up until the day he could work no more.
Jim and Shanie took over the business from Jim’s sister, Julie (Joynes) and her husband, Rodney Carlson, who had managed the store but wanted to change careers.
“Selling the business was seriously considered. Ultimately, Shanie and I made the decision to keep the family business going while staying committed to our careers in Duluth. Monumental task? Yep. To handle the day-to-day operations, we did something our family had never been done before; we brought in a non-family general manager. With our kids in college, we put in place a five-year plan. We felt that would be enough time to see if our kid’s future was in Grand Marais as fourth-generation owners. We felt we owed it to them and to our family’s history to keep open the option of carrying forward the family business. A couple of years ago, after many serious conversations, the kid’s paths became clear and we knew there would be no generation four ownership of the store. So, we started to explore a transition,” wrote Jim.
That transition ultimately led last spring to the hiring of Tyler Dean to manage the business. Tyler and his wife had briefly owned White Pine North, which burned in the spring of 2020 with two other businesses.
Tyler Dean grew up in Grand Marais, leaving after graduating high school in 2007 to work in the mission field, where he met Jessica in Switzerland while working with Youth With a Mission. The two married in 2015, settling down in Grand Marais.
Once back home, Tyler worked at Nanibijou Lodge and Restaurant before he and Jessica purchased White Pine North from Jim and Jackie Larson on January 1, 2020. After the fire, Tyler worked for Licari and Larson, a local accounting firm, before coming to Joynes.
Jim said in his Facebook post, “Finding interested buyers wasn’t hard. Finding the perfect buyer was. Selling to the wrong person could change the personality of our town, forever. We felt an overwhelming pressure to uphold our family’s history, as well as a fiduciary responsibility to try to preserve our town’s character. Ladies and gentlemen, some of the prospective buyers and proposals we heard would curl your toes and boil your blood…. think change and development; think of the types of shops you find in Niagara Falls and Wisconsin Dells. You can agree or disagree, but we just didn’t want to be the catalyst for that kind of change. We hoped to find someone who wanted to keep the framework of an already successful business and have the energy to make it better. In a perfect world, it would be someone who understood our town and the challenges of doing business here. Then a spark ignited, literally.
“In the Spring of 2020, our town experienced a tragic fire. It destroyed three businesses, forever changing the landscape of the downtown business district and forever changing the three business owners’ lives. In the aftermath, a group representing many voices began meeting about redevelopment. The adjacent Joynes parking lot became part of the discussion. Ultimately, so did the Ben Franklin building. During these meetings, I kept hearing one voice stand out. This voice was optimistic, energetic, and committed to getting his business rebuilt and back up and running. His name was Tyler Dean, owner of White Pine North. Tyler grew up in Grand Marais, he and his wife Jessica are raising their family here, and they understand the challenges local businesses face. To make a really long story short, one day, I asked him why he wouldn’t just buy my business.
“Last Spring, Tyler joined our team as general manager. This arrangement paved a path toward possible transition. More importantly, it gave both of us the time needed to conduct due diligence to make sure we had a perfect fit. I think it is.”
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