A slice of western lifestyle on Van Nuys Boulevard
Step inside the Country General Store on Van Nuys Boulevard, and you’ll be greeted with the warm scent of saddle leather. Neon signs glow above polished silver belt buckles. One wall is lined floor to ceiling with cowboy boots — not just any boots, but top of the line brands like Lucchese crafted in Cayman crocodile and full-quill ostrich. Over the speakers, Gretchen Wilson belts out “Redneck Woman.”
“We’re a diamond in the rough,” says owner Rick Stanoff, smiling from behind the counter.
The store’s story stretches back nearly seventy years. Rick’s father founded it in 1956 as Surplus Distributors, a downtown Los Angeles military supply shop selling army fatigues and camping gear. The building on the corner of Van Nuys Boulevard dates to the 1910s — once a California Bank branch, Rick says. When his father died in the 1970s, Rick suddenly found himself at the helm, just 18 years old. Bit by bit, he steered the business toward western wear.
“I love western values,” he explains. “That honesty is the best policy. That it’s important to give back. That when you meet someone, you shake their hand — and that’s your contract. I decided I would run my business that way.”
A global clientele
Today, the Country General Store is less a shop than a destination. Customers fly in from around the world. “We had an Italian couple here last week,” Rick recalls. “They landed, and this was their first stop.” Celebrities — from Shaboozey to Orville Peck to Dwight Yoakam — are loyal clients. Hollywood costumers outfit films here. The store itself has made a few on-screen cameos.
But for Rick, that’s not the point. “Our customers come from all walks of life,” he says. A gardener searching for sturdy work pants, a plumber replacing worn-out boots — even, as he talks, a house painter wanders in looking for something durable.
Dressing the next generation
Just like Van Nuys Boulevard itself –– once a high end shopping destination, then a venue for hotrods and lowriders and now becoming something else as construction of the East San Fernando Valley Light Rail Project begins –– the Country General Store combines old and new elements that help it stand out. Regulars who discovered the store as children now bring their kids. Two of Rick’s employees have been with him since before many of today’s shoppers were born. And the waves of fashion keep bringing new faces through the doors. “Last year, when Beyoncé came to L.A. for her Cowboy Carter tour, I saw a flood of business,” Rick says. “People who had never owned a piece of western gear in their life were like kids in a candy shop.”
A grin creeps across his face.
“It was phenomenal.”