SCRANTON — A business built on one-of-a-kind eyeglasses and stellar customer service and craftmanship will close its doors in the coming months.
After originally working under someone in the Medical Arts Building on North Washington Avenue, Tom Grudis opened his own shop in 1980 in the former Courtyard Mall, now Ritz Theater building, his daughter, Stephanie Grudis-Whisner, said.
He stayed in that spot for about four years before establishing a location on Spruce Street, now Biden Street, where the business has remained for four decades.
Grudis-Whisner joined the family business 33 years ago and stressed that customers grew to appreciate the personalization of each pair of glasses.
“We do all our own work here on premise — repairs and cutting the lenses — and most people outsource it,” she said.
Grudis-Whisner recalled the moment when she decided to work alongside her dad more than three decades ago.
“I went to college because I didn’t know what I wanted to do with my life,” she said. “Then, I was the manager of a Victoria’s Secret and had enough. I called my father and said, ‘Can I come to work?’ And he said, ‘Absolutely.’ I said, ‘How come you never asked me?’ And he said, ‘Because you had to make that decision on our own, I wasn’t going to make it for you.’ “
Grudis-Whisner also stressed that personalization and customer service have always been the No. 1 priorities for her and her father.
“When you come in, you get one of us,” she said. “You know who you’re going to talk to and who you’ll deal with.”
Serving generations of customers also has been important at Grudis Optical.
“Some of the little kids are now grown adults with kids of their own,” Grudis-Whisner said. “We’ve been taking care of people all these years. It’s that old, small-business mentality.”
Both Grudis and Grudis-Whisner felt the time was right to eventually close the business.
“We’ve been talking about it the last year, year-and-a-half,” Grudis-Whisner said. “Like my father always said, my whole life, ‘Stephanie, it will work out,’ and it always did. It was a great run, but it’s time.”
While Grudis-Whisner isn’t sure about her next steps, her father joked he might seek out other employment.
“I’m going to have to find a job,” Tom Grudis said.
Additionally, Grudis-Whisner moved her other business — The Bare Accessories — from Montage Mountain to inside Tom Grudis Optical in 2012. Combining the two made perfect sense, she added.
“If you go way back to the ’30s or ’40s, optical centers were in jewelry stores, so it’s really a throwback to then,” Grudis-Whisner said.
A tag is attached to eyeglasses sold at Tom Grudis Optical Center in downtown Scranton Wednesday, December 31, 2025. (SEAN MCKEAG / STAFF PHOTOGRAPHER)
Eyeglasses are for sale at Tom Grudis Optical Center in downtown Scranton Wednesday, December 31, 2025. (SEAN MCKEAG / STAFF PHOTOGRAPHER)
Eyeglasses are sold at Tom Grudis Optical Center in downtown Scranton Wednesday, December 31, 2025. (SEAN MCKEAG / STAFF PHOTOGRAPHER)
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A tag is attached to eyeglasses sold at Tom Grudis Optical Center in downtown Scranton Wednesday, December 31, 2025. (SEAN MCKEAG / STAFF PHOTOGRAPHER)
The specific styles of glasses in demand continually change, which has benefited the shop over the years, Grudis-Whisner said.
“It’s funny because it did evolve, but now it’s all coming back around again,” she said. “It started off small and then larger frames, then it went back to real small frames and now we’re back up to larger. If it stayed the same, nobody would want to change their glasses.”
Kelly Dolan of Philadelphia, formerly of the Scranton area, started shopping at Tom Grudis Optical in the late ’90s and continues to support the business when visiting family.
“All my glasses are from here,” Dolan said Wednesday morning. “I like that the frames are unique, they’re definitely different, and the service. I bought one of the frames in 2000, and they’re still good quality, and they’ll do the adjustments and everything.”