Photograph by Kathy De La Torre
Bit O'Country's Cecile Critchfield waits on a customer, while the store's pampered mascot, Paulette, lounges on her bed.
Tiny Bit O' Country to close collectible shop this month
Shop was lots of work-and fun
By Leigh Ann Maze
After 16 years in business, Bit O' Country will close its doors by mid-February. The tiny shop nestled in Saratoga Village is holding a retirement sale to sell the last of its antiques, collectibles and country crafts.
Bit 'O County owners David and Cecile Critchfield quit their jobs in the construction business and at the San Jose Coin Shop, respectively, to put their combined energy into opening Bit O' Country in May 1983. The two have since been hard at work as the owners and sole employees of the store.
David remembers occasionally working 15-hour days buying, selling and displaying merchandise, cleaning the store and keeping the books. The long hours and energy required to keep the store operating are the main reasons that David and Cecile, who are in their 50s, decided to close the doors for good.
"We have a lot of regular customers, and we will definitely miss them, but it's time to move on to the next step," David said.
For Cecile, that means retirement and travel. "My first stop will probably be Africa," she said.
David will devote much of his time to his folk art business, Poliwoggs, a line of decorative papier-mâche figures that he started about five years ago in Bit O' Country's back room with partner Vic Fortunato. Poliwoggs has grown rapidly, and the figures are now being mass-produced by a company in Watsonville. The figures are popular at gift shows and are picked up by many large and small retailers. Critchfield recently signed a three-year contract with Disney to sell the Mickey Mouse, Donald Duck and other character figures in the Disneyland collectibles store. He and Fortunato plan to expand the Poliwoggs line and design new products for other major retailers. With the rapid growth of Poliwoggs, Critchfield said it has been hard devote as much time as he would like behind the counter at Bit O' Country.
The Critchfield's dog, a dachshund named Paulette, has joined them behind the counter since 1993, peeking at customers from under her pink blanket in her bed. "People come in just to see Paulette," David said. "Customers ask about her every day, as well as how much the airplane in the window costs," he said, pointing to the silver, 4-foot-long restored 1941 Pursuit model airplane displayed in the front window. The plane is not for sale.
Although the Critchfields live in Willow Glen, they have spent a lot of time in their Saratoga shop. "Being here almost every day for all those years, you see a lot of things happen," David said.
He recalls one Superbowl Sunday when someone stole a Tiffany Lamp right out from under their noses. In the late 1980s, a large gas-tanker spilled on Big Basin Way and for days the Critchfields said that not a soul could be seen downtown. The 1989 Loma Prieta earthquake rolled through Bit O' Country leaving several pickup-truckloads full of destroyed merchandise, fallen antiques stuck to the carpet with spilled honey, and loose floorboards where there were none before.
Just after the earthquake, they watched as Caltrans tore up Big Basin Way. Tractors parked with their tires on Bit O' Country's front step, and "the world's largest back hoe" dug up the street, rattling the shop's windows.
"We had to bring our customers in through the back," David recalls.
Once a popular Korean film director used their store to shoot a scene in a Korean James Bond-like TV show with very famous Korean actors.
"It's been a lot of work, and sometimes fun," David said. "Business has been good; otherwise, we wouldn't have been here so long."
Saratoga, California Since 1955
