QUICK TAKE
Jonathan's Educational Resources
3100 N. Stone Ave., just south of Fort Lowell Road, 628-1108
What: Back-to-school items like paper, pencils, pens; teaching supplies; bulletin boards; workbooks
Price range: 20 cents to $200
Hours: 10 a.m.-6 p.m. Mondays through Saturdays; noon-4 p.m. Sundays
Et cetera: Also check out the store's Web site, www.jonathansonline.com, to order items.
For Jonathan Katz, it's all about the customers. His store, Jonathan's Educational Resources, caters to teachers, parents and administrators, and has done so for 19 years.
When entering the store, be prepared to be greeted by one of the employees, who include wife Marcia and daughters Rebecca, 18, and Lauren, 15.
"These customers are the greatest you could ever have," Marcia said. For Jonathan, Marcia and the other employees, customers are the No. 1 priority. If there is a customer with questions, they get answered. If they enter the store, they are greeted.
"I tell my employees that regardless of what busy work they are doing, when a customer needs help, they need to be there to help them," Jonathan said.
Jonathan's offers a wide variety of informational charts, workbooks on topics such as medieval history or how to improve writing skills, and science kits among many other items. The walls are covered in bulletin boards that teachers can put up in the classroom, and every row and corner in the store has tools to further the learning process.
Not only does Jonathan's carry these items in the store, it also has a Web site and an in-store catalog. The Web site attracts customers from all over the globe, while customers can pick up a catalog, which contains almost 260 pages, browse through it and return to the store knowing what they want.
"We have a lot of inexpensive items in the store, and the bigger-ticketed items tend to be online or in the catalog," Jonathan said. He doesn't worry about the popularity of the Internet taking a toll on his store's profits.
"I don't think Web sites will ever replace stores in this industry. There is just too much hands-on work in picking the items that need to be bought," he said. "People would miss out on the fun of coming into the store if they only bought online.
"We wanted to open the store because there really wasn't much in town when it came to teaching supplies," added Jonathan, who has experience in both education and retail. His mother owned her own retail store that he worked in as a high school student, and he was also an educator and taught for eight years.
Over time Jonathan's has gone from one store to two and back to one location again. "We had two stores at one point, but it really took us away from the customers," he said, noting that now he can be more hands-on with the customers and not so spread out between the locations.
The store has workshops during the week as well as on weekends that are directed at teachers to help them learn and teach different educational concepts, creating a meeting place for them to bond and learn together.
"I couldn't ask for anything more in a store," Jonathan said.
"The store has been Jonathan's dream," Marcia said. "He has always wanted to do this."