Fromuth Racquet Sports is closing its store in Spring Township and moving its warehouse operations to Cincinnati, Ohio, store officials told MediaNews Group.<\/p>\n
The racquet sports wholesale distributor and retailer operates a shop and warehouse at 1100 Rocky Drive, off Van Reed Road.<\/p>\n
In a letter, owner Pat Shields said the company will be selling the building and moving out over the next year.<\/p>\n
He noted that two years ago, Fromuth bought another company: Midwest Racquet Sports, a direct-to-consumer business that operates a shop and warehouse in Cincinnati, as well as an online store.<\/p>\n
Midwest Racquet Sports is a complementary business model to Fromuth, Shields said, since most of Fromuth\u2019s revenue comes from shipping products to clubs and retail shops across the country.<\/p>\n
The plan now is to shift Fromuth\u2019s warehouse to the Midwest Racquet Sports facility.<\/p>\n
\u201cIn today\u2019s competitive business environment, we needed to consolidate our warehouse operations to reduce expenses,\u201d Shields said.<\/p>\n
Fromuth and Midwest Racquet Sports will continue to operate as separate businesses, company officials noted.<\/p>\n
The decision to close the Berks County store wasn\u2019t easy, Shields said, since the company has been rooted there since Jim and Kathy Fromuth founded it in West Reading in 1973.<\/p>\n
\u201cI am fortunate to have worked with so many great people ever since Meg and I bought the business in 1992,\u201d Shields said. \u201cThe reputation of Fromuth is a credit to this core group that showed up every day and made sure our customers were happy.\u201d<\/p>\n
Fromuth offers a selection of 22,000 products, including racquets, paddles, apparel, footwear, and equipment for tennis, pickleball, padel, and squash.<\/p>\n
Although operations at the store\u2019s retail shop and 25,000-square foot warehouse are winding down, Shields said Fromuth will maintain a presence in Berks County.<\/p>\n
\u201cFromuth will still have an office in Berks County with about 25 employees in customer service, IT, marketing, and accounting,\u201d Sheilds said. \u201cOn a personal note, my wife and I still have a residence here and we will always call Berks County our home.\u201d<\/p>\n
In addition, Shields said the store is working with some staff members to help them set up racquet stringing and customization services.<\/p>\n
He noted that Fromuth will continue its support of charitable organizations in Berks County.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt has been incredibly rewarding to be a part of The Olivet Boys and Girls Club, The United Way, and West Reading Pickleball, among others,\u201d Shields said.<\/p>\n
The store is currently having a clearance sale, with 100% of the proceeds going to Olivet Boys and Girls Club.<\/p>\n
Shields said the tennis industry is small, but everybody in it recognizes Fromuth for its great service.<\/p>\n
He thanked all those involved in Fromuth for their years of support.<\/p>\n
\u201cI know that our store closing will be the \u2018end of an era\u2019 for our local racquet sports athletes,\u201d Shields said. \u201cI am sorry we can no longer be there for you in person. I always loved hanging out in our store and chatting with so many tennis and pickleball friends.\u201d<\/p>\n
For now, the store in Spring Township remains open 8:30 a.m. to 5 p.m. Monday through Friday and Saturday from 9 a.m. to 1 p.m.<\/p>\n
A final closing date has yet to be determined.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Fromuth Racquet Sports is closing its store in Spring Township and moving its warehouse operations to Cincinnati, Ohio,…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":111409,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[11],"tags":[349,60,182,28,128,130,129,3198,706],"class_list":{"0":"post-111408","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-reading","8":"tag-berks-county","9":"tag-business","10":"tag-local-news","11":"tag-pennsylvania","12":"tag-reading-city","13":"tag-reading-city-headlines","14":"tag-reading-city-news","15":"tag-spring-township","16":"tag-top-stories-reg"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/111408","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=111408"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/111408\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/111409"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=111408"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=111408"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=111408"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}