CB's Tux & Tech

Step into Craig Mathis’ store on Lancaster’s Main Street, and you’ll see a business shedding its old skin and becoming new again. 

A shrinking clearance corner with stilettos and sequined gowns is being overtaken by a larger selection of tuxedos and a growing assortment of computers, cell phones and tablets awaiting repair.

The business is in its fourth incarnation since Craig’s father opened its doors as a hair salon in 1968. C.B. Mathis took the tiny specialty store into the national fashion spotlight, even coaching one of his clients to a Miss America title.

“We had been at a worldwide level before, and it was a struggle to let that part go,” Craig Mathis says. “But my spirit yearned for more. I finally felt the confidence to do what I love, or what I’m good at…. It’s about learning and having fun.”

In the store, two blocks south of Lancaster’s historic courthouse, a steady flow of teenage boys and their prom dates shop for the perfect tux. A few feet away, customers with broken cell phone screens and crashed computers wait their turn as Mathis explains tuxedo styles to young men suiting up in this formal way for the first time.  

He allows space for them to consult with their girlfriends, feel the fabric and daydream. He remains nearby to answer questions and make suggestions based on years of experience.

Mathis, 44, learned fashion from the best around. He grew up watching his father, Claude Bailey Mathis, known as C.B., transform uncertain and awkward young girls into beauty queens.  

Between prom customers, Mathis switches gear to answer computer questions from panicked callers. If he can’t walk them through the solution on the phone, he tells them to bring the computer in. 

Mathis knows technology the way his dad knew fashion. He bought the formalwear business from his father in 2000, and for a successful decade he ran it pretty much unchanged. 

Then the upheavals started. C.B. Mathis died unexpectedly May 25, 2011. Craig began to wonder about the business model, as the rising cost of gowns priced more customers out of the market. 

In October 2013, a broken water line flooded the store with over 65,000 gallons of water and fuel oil from a furnace in the basement, ruining everything inside.

“Business came to a standstill, and we had to start over,” Mathis said. “That turned out to be a gift, a turning point. It was God’s timing.”

The business that emerged after the flood included a new wrinkle. Mathis began quietly repairing computers on-site. As word spread, that business began growing.

This past Jan. 1, Mathis made it official. He rechristened the store C.B.’s Tux & Tech, phased out the gowns, kept the tuxedos and put his technology skills on full display.

“Technology isn’t going anywhere. It’s here to stay, and so am I,” he said.

Mathis looked around at the newly designed macho logo and the mannequins decked out in tuxedos worthy of a Hollywood red carpet. “We are going from girly girly to man cave,” he said.

That kind of transformation is often essential to business survival, says Dean Faile, Lancaster County chamber president and former small-business owner. 

“Typically when you see a business with that kind of longevity, you are looking at an amazing ability to adapt,” Faile said. “C.B.’s has adapted to the market and reinvented themselves with the changing times.”   

Version 1.0

C.B.’s Version 1.0 began in 1968 as The Peach Tree, a hair salon and clothing store in the same block as the current store.

C.B. Mathis grew up on a farm in the Elgin community, graduated from Lancaster High School in 1962 and spent the next six years searching for a fit to satisfy his creative spirit. College and the local textile mill stifled his artistic cravings.   

A little side job of fixing his sister-in-law’s hair began to take center stage in his life. He loved how it made her look and feel. So the young man with a flair for fashion took a chance and headed to Camden Beauty School.  

When he returned to Lancaster, Version 1.0 started with a commitment to bring out the best in the client. C.B. cut hair on the lower level and sold clothes upstairs. He developed a following among pageant contestants with his uncanny ability to transform aspiring young women into beauty queens.    

By the late 70s and early 80s, Version 2.0 began with a new store selling just sportswear, though he kept his pageant business going at the same time.

That version succeeded for a decade. Then the big-box stores and malls of the late ‘80s lured shoppers away from the downtown specialty shops. Mathis changed his business model again, dropped sportswear and focused on formal wear. 

Version 3.0 evolved with a new look and by the early ‘90s, C.B.’s Limited was the place to go for tuxedos, bridal gowns and designer evening dresses. For the next decade, the ever-evolving businessman focused on formal wear and pageant coaching and judging.

Young women with beauty queen dreams traveled from all along the Eastern Seaboard to C.B.’s on Main Street in Lancaster. One of his young ladies, Kimberly Aiken of Columbia, was crowned Miss America in 1994.   

By that time, Craig was in college at Winthrop, working part-time and summers at C.B.’s. But he didn’t picture himself taking over the family business.

One summer, another part-timer caught his eye. April Adams was working at C.B.’s and attending USCL. He and April fell in love almost at first sight. They graduated in May 1996 and married five months later.  

After graduating with a biology degree, Craig worked at a medical lab in Rock Hill, but boredom started creeping in. His interest in computers and technology held his interest.

“I bought a computer and had to finance it,” he said. “I didn’t have extra money for repairs, so if something broke I had to fix it. I taught myself to maintain, upgrade and troubleshoot.”

Friends and family started bringing him computers to clean and fix.     

A job at C.B.’s

A manager left C.B.’s in 1997, creating a vacancy at his dad’s store. Craig seized the opportunity as a way out of the lab, but he wasn’t thrilled about selling clothes. He told his dad that he wasn’t going to sell anything but he would help modernize the business, which at that point did not have a computer.     

In 2000, C.B. retired and went into real estate. Craig and April bought the business as equal partners.

“I had to learn it all,” he said, “the product, customer service, and yes, even the sales part.” 

His father remained for a couple of years during the transition. C.B.’s Limited continued to be successful selling and renting formal wear, Craig said. He enjoyed interacting with the customers but craved more challenge and continued teaching himself technology in the evenings and during breaks at the store.

Craig and April settled down and had two kids. Clay and Hannah are now 11 and 8. His wife returned to work in medical technology after a few years helping out at C.B.’s.  She is an assistant lab director and blood bank supervisor at Springs Memorial Hospital.     

C.B., always proud and impressed with his son’s computer skills, advised Craig to follow his passion.

“My dad would always say to me, ‘Son, why aren’t you working with computers? That’s your passion,’” Mathis recalls. “It just took me a while to get it. I didn’t think I was ready for it. I wasn’t confident enough.”   

After C.B. died in 2011, Mathis recalled his dad urging him to follow his heart, just as C.B. had always done. 

“Something just clicked after the flood. I knew I was going to take a chance with computers,” Mathis said.

At the start of this year, he added the tech to the tuxedos and kept the name C.B.’s. as a tribute to his father. “This place will always be C.B.’s,” he said.

His sister, Crista Blackmon, five years his junior, says he reminds her of their dad.

C.B.’s greatest quality was his love for people, “no matter their race, gender, sexual preference, whether rich or poor,” she said.” Craig, a bit of an introvert, is growing into the same people person, she said. 

Their mom, Carolyn Pendergrass Mathis, says Craig is a younger version of C.B., with talent, passion, drive and energy. 

“My husband and son see the best in everyone,” she said. “The technology addition to the business is a perfect fit for Craig and this area.”

‘It’s the C.B. way’

It’s prom season, the busiest time of year for formal wear. The tech side is also buzzing, with nonstop calls about complex computer questions. Mathis answers them all, without much technical jargon.  

“My strength is trouble-shooting. There has never been a problem I couldn’t figure out, whether it took two minutes or two weeks. I don’t give up until I figure it out,” Mathis said.  

The new C.B.’s offers price-conscious upgrades, malware and virus removal, tuneups,  operating system installations, full system builds and tech support. They replace batteries and broken screens.

Mathis calls himself a “frugal technologist.” 

“People call thinking they need a new computer when the one they have is only a couple years old,” he said. “They think it’s broken, because it’s slow.”

Usually it’s just a matter of removing viruses.  

“My home computer is 10 years old. It’s fast and clean,”  Craig said, crediting what he calls defensive surfing. “You can’t just get in a car and drive. You need some basic understanding. It’s the same with computers.”

Like C.B., he focuses on customer service, never overlooking a detail.

“I can’t stand leaving a customer with an unfinished product, whether it is a tux or a computer…. I just love to call the customer and hear the satisfaction in his voice. It’s the C.B. way.”

The Charlotte Observer interviewed C.B. Mathis in 1997. He said he had three wishes for his clients: “A better understanding of themselves, that they’re pleased with what they’ve done, and that they don’t look back and say, ‘Why didn’t I?’”

It seems his son took notes.

 

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Contact reporter Mandy Catoe at (803) 283-1152 or mcatoe@thelancasternews.com.