An American Success Story: Len Goldstein

This summer, a few friends and I are taking a road trip across the country on a mission to find American success stories. We didn’t have enough money to do it ourselves, so we reached out to our favorite restaurant, The Cheesecake Factory, to see if there was a way to do it in partnership with them, and they enthusiastically agreed to sponsor our trip. What we didn’t realize is that The Cheesecake Factory is also an American success story. Over the course of the trip we will interview artists, craftspeople, and entrepreneurs who are dedicated to their work. We aim to highlight a diverse set of talents across a few different regions of the country including the northeast, the midwest, and the west.

Our second interview was with Len Goldstein, who has run Keezer’s used formal wear in Cambridge, Massachusetts for 40 years. He told us about how much care and dedication he puts into making sure every customer leaves with a quality suit or tux and a smile on their face.

To Len, this starts with the fabric. “It’s like an art, looking over the quality of the fabric. Sometimes clothing was handmade in London. We still get that stuff. There’s an Italian company that sews the fibers and and the sheep are brought up in the best areas, and some of these fabrics are just absolutely wonderful. They’re rare and they’re expensive like a fancy bottle of wine.”

But unlike a fancy bottle of wine, Len’s able to sell these normally expensive clothes for fractions of the price. “We’ve had sportcoats from Neiman Marcus that are made from Loro Piana 100% cashmere that are $4,500, because the fiber is so rare, so exclusive, that they can charge those prices. And there are some people that are willing to pay those prices. The workmanship is beautiful. But a lot of people they’re happy with, not $4500, but they’re really happy with a $450 jacket. And we’ve gotten our share of those cashmere jackets, and we sell them for 90% off.”

Len told us that this was a difference between Keezer’s and other formal wear stores that he really prides himself on. “At a lot of stores now, the sales people are just trained to sell stuff and it doesn’t matter how they sell it. Just push it out. I take a lot of pride in making sure that people leave the store with something that looks good on them and fits them. And we think nothing of taking things off people and saying this isn’t right. They’ll say, ‘But I like it.’ And we’re honest with them, ‘No, it’s not right. Try something else.’ And we’ve actually wound up selling things for less money just making sure that the customer gets something that looks good and fits well.”

Len’s focus on quality products and doing right by the customer is the centerpoint to his craftsmanship. “Some students come in, and they say, ‘I need a tuxedo. I have several events. I don’t know what my size is. I don’t know what the style is, and how much they cost.’ You should know enough never to say that stuff. Like, I don’t know what the style is. Because somebody could hoist some awful thing on you and charge twice as much. And again, I pride myself in not doing that. They walk out with a smile on their face.”

We enjoyed our conversation with Len at The Cheesecake Factory in the Prudential Center in Boston, and we look forward to finding more American success stories on our journey across America. Follow along on Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter.