Couple opens Hutch Menswear in downtown Chehalis

Menswear shop merging with Be-You-tiful Boutique Feb. 1

By Owen Sexton  / owen@chronline.com
Posted 1/22/25

In September 2023, Bartel’s Clothing and Shoes — a menswear store that had been operating in downtown Chehalis for 101 years — closed its doors.

It was the last of several …

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Couple opens Hutch Menswear in downtown Chehalis

Menswear shop merging with Be-You-tiful Boutique Feb. 1

Posted

In September 2023, Bartel’s Clothing and Shoes — a menswear store that had been operating in downtown Chehalis for 101 years — closed its doors.

It was the last of several long-operating menswear stores in the downtown area to close.

Now, Hutch Menswear is bringing a new men’s fashion option in downtown Chehalis.

The return of a menswear store in the area had a somewhat unconventional genesis.

Just prior to Bartel’s closure in June 2023, Be-You-tiful Boutique, originally an online business owned by Rachael and Peter Atkinson, of Chehalis, opened at its brick-and-mortar location down the street from Bartel’s on North Market Boulevard.

Rachael is originally from Castle Rock while Peter hails from the Aberdeen area. The couple recently celebrated their 25th wedding anniversary last September and have called Chehalis home since 2003.

The Chronicle met with the Atkinsons at Hutch’s new location on Monday, Jan. 20, to talk about their businesses, how Hutch was born and the history of their current location.

“Be-You-tiful Boutique, when we opened, we had a hutch in the corner of the boutique that we referred to as the ‘man hutch,’” Rachael said.

Prior to opening the brick-and-mortar location, the Atkinsons had been operating Be-You-tiful online since 2017.

By 2023, the store had been very successful.

“It was hubby’s idea to actually open a storefront after COVID,” Rachel said. “... But I was like, ‘No, it’s a horrible idea, we’ll have overhead, and what if nobody comes in?’ And all the things that come with that. But I’ll admit, he got that one right for sure, hit it out of the ballpark, because it was a huge success.”

Since opening the storefront, Be-You-tiful has been successful, including winning The Chronicle’s Best of Lewis County 2024 award for Best Clothing Store.

The business has grown.

“Coming out of COVID, people were craving human touch and human interaction. They wanted in-person shopping, but I feel like our community especially, really, really rallies around to support small businesses,” Rachael said. “It was kind of all God’s timing.”

With that growth, and men and women coming to shop, Rachael noticed men had to navigate through the small boutique all the way back to the men’s section in the “hutch.”

“Which wasn’t always ideal,” Rachael said.

The Atkinsons then decided to give that “hutch” its own location. In November 2024, they opened Hutch Menswear just a few steps away from Be-You-tiful at the former location of the M&K Town Store.

In the time Hutch has been open, Peter said customers have been happy to have a menswear store again.

“They’re pleasantly surprised with how we’ve cleaned it up in such a short amount of time and kind of brought it back to a clothing store. We even still have the wood ‘S’ (door handles) on the door from the original (M.) Schwartz & Co.,” Peter said. “... We’ve gotten feedback that we’re helping keep some local traditions alive because there were three or four men’s stores downtown that used to do very well, so here we are back at it.” 

Even with Hutch now open, meaning the “hutch” in Be-You-tiful Boutique could now be used for more boutique items, Rachael still found Be-You-tiful had outgrown its space.



“It’s a great location where I’m currently at. I love the space. I just don’t have enough of it,” Rachael said.

Meanwhile, with renovations complete to the old M&K Town Store, the Atkinsons discovered they had much more room than they needed for Hutch.

“This is so much more space than what we have there. I could literally move over and double my space and still have the men’s store. My current space is about 600 square feet. This combined is like 2,600 square feet,” Rachael said.

So now, just a couple short months after Hutch moved out of Be-You-tiful, the two businesses are about to be under one roof once again starting on Feb. 1.

Another draw of housing both businesses under the same roof at Hutch’s location is the history of the building, which includes it having sold both men’s and women’s clothing as Schwartz & Co. for more than six decades.

The building is more than a century old, having been constructed in 1898, Rachael explained.

Originally built by the Chehalis Improvement Company, according to the Lewis County Historical Society, the building first housed a number of different businesses, including the First National Bank, Marr’s Drug Store, Garrison Drug Store and Henry Mandel’s Men’s Clothing Store until 1934 when it was sold to Schwartz & Co.

While selling primarily men’s clothes, there was a dress shop in the back of Schwartz & Co. After Schwartz & Co. closed in 1995, a number of other businesses came and went at the location until Hutch finally opened this past November.

“For 75 years it was a men’s store … And now we’re kind of back to its roots of a men’s store. That’s where it started,” Rachael said. “And we’re expanding, because it had a dress store in the back, and now we’re about to have both men’s and women’s clothing.”

The grand reopening of Be-You-tiful inside of Hutch is scheduled from noon to 4 p.m. on Saturday, Feb. 1, and the Atkinsons will have cookies and charcuterie for customers courtesy of the Northwest Salmon Smokehouse & Artisan Market, which operates out of Bartel’s old location.

“We’ll be celebrating the new bigger space and us back under one roof. Because we love working together. We’re married, we’re best friends, we’re business partners and we’ve missed not working together for the past couple of months. It’s been weird,” Rachael said.

Currently, Be-You-tiful Boutique is located at 535 N. Market Blvd., but as of Feb. 1, will be located inside Hutch Menswear located at 515 N. Market Blvd. in downtown Chehalis.

For more information, visit both Be-You-tiful’s and Hutch’s websites at https://beyoushopping.com/ and https://hutchmenswear.com/ or follow the businesses on their Facebook pages at https://www.facebook.com/beyouonmarket and https://tinyurl.com/yuajxbwk