DelMonico’s 4th Generation Hats A City

The following article was reported through a collaboration between the New Haven Independent and the Multimedia Journalism class at Southern Connecticut State University. The students are profiling small businesses around the New Haven area.
DelMonico Hatter has been around since Ford’s Model T first rolled off the assembly line.

The era where the majority of men — and many women— wore hats in their daily lives might be long gone, but DelMonico’s has stayed.

DelMonico Hatter began selling headwear in 1908. One look at a photograph from the early part of the 20th Century shows just how prevalent hats were.

“50 or 60 years ago,” said owner Ernest DelMonico, ​“there would have been dozens of places in New Haven to buy hats.”

DelMonico’s is the only store that specializes in dress hats left in the state.

“They’re all gone and we’re the only ones remaining,” Ernest said.

There are, of course, stores that sell baseball hats and department stores with a selection of dress hats.

Ernest’s grandfather, whom he was named after, founded the downtown New Haven business. Ownership later passed to the elder Ernest’s son, Joseph. Jospeh ran the store for no less than 73 years, while New Haven’s other hat stores and department stores gradually disappeared.

Ernest, 75, has been the owner since 2001, and is not the last in his lineage at the store. The fourth generation DelMonico hatter, Ben, began working part-time at the family business as a teenager.

“When I first started working here it was a lot of the old-timers,” Ben said. ​“You know, a lot of older gentlemen who knew my grandfather from way back, and every year they’d come in and get a new hat.”

The store was a ​“different environment” in his early years there, according to Ben. The older crowd and the regulars would hang around to socialize. ​“Sometimes it would have a barber shop kind of feel,” he said.

Ben said his grandfather Joseph always needed extra help around the holidays, so he worked in the store during the winter from his teens to mid 20s. It was only a year and a half ago that the younger DelMonico became a full-time employee at the store. In the intervening years, he was living in New York and studying to become a priest. Ben had to readjust his focus back toward hat sales and learn the contemporary styles.

“It’s like all those old Italian businesses that get passed down for centuries, it’s kind of got that feel,” Ben said. ​“I have to decide if I’m going to continue that or not.”

Growing the Business Online
To keep the 107 year-old store modern, Ernest turned to the internet. This, he said, enabled his hats to be sold beyond the traditional customer base of Connecticut, Westchester County, and southern Massachusetts.

Ernest applied for a Connecticut Small Business Express grant and loan in 2012, receiving $90,000 total toward updating software and expanding their inventory. The web presence has allowed the hat retailer more exposure, according to Ernest.

Though the internet makes up most of their sales, the walk-in business has its good days. Ernest said some people drive several hours to buy a hat at his store and spend the day in New Haven. Saturdays, he said, were typically the best for walk-in customers.

It was a Saturday in February, with snow lightly falling past the front windows when Ernest pointed toward the front of the store. Jeff Dyer was finishing a sale, handing a customer clothed in tan another wide-brimmed hat. The customer put the hat on, and glanced into one of the mirrors situated in the store, subtly tugging and adjusting the brim.

“Now I can call you guys, you know my size,” said Armen Aftandalin with a laugh. Aftandalin had travelled all the way from Boston because, he said, DelMonico’s is ​“the only retailer.”

Dyer took the last hat Aftandalin selected and carefully placed it inside a box, stacking near a half-dozen others by the cash register. He rang up the total, more than $1,900, then helped Aftandalin carry the boxes to his car.

DelMonico Hatter will continue to maintain the retail presence, but the internet has connected them a far-reaching customer base. According to Ben, online sales account for about 85 percent of the store’s revenue.

Though hats are not as ubiquitous as they once were, Ernest said: ​“the last two years have been our best two years ever.”

An old, hand-colored photograph of Ernest DelMonico Sr. watches over the store from a tall shelf near the entrance. The younger Ernest has kept the business productive through the Internet, but owning a bank software development business before running the family store, he said he takes it as just another business.

Ben said as a young man he was busy studying, and not putting serious thought toward his future with the store. And while he hasn’t made a decision yet whether to become the fourth owner; ​“there is a sense of legacy,” he said.