Brookside neighbors rally around shop owner hit with fire soon after husband’s death

Kim Harris said she’s not a crier. But the tears came this week.

Her husband, Kevin, passed away unexpectedly in late October. He handled much of the behind-the-scenes work at their Brookside shop, The (New) Dime Store, where sales had been down nearly 30% during the pandemic. The couple had hoped to make up some of those dollars during the crucial holiday season.

Then she got a call at home Tuesday morning. There was a fire at the shop.

“I must have broken down about 20 times yesterday,” Harris said Wednesday morning. “It’s not even the fire. It’s everything.”

The beloved shop, at 314 W. 63rd St., has been part of Brookside since 1939. The area’s mostly local business owners know and look out for each other, said Josh Gilbert, manager of the Brookside Barber Shop, another longtime business just next door.

He was in the barber shop’s basement when he heard the alarm around 9 a.m. and went to investigate. Smoke was billowing out of the dime store, and then he saw flames in one spot that nearly reached the ceiling. He broke out a front window with a hammer as other barber shop employees called 911 and began filling trash cans with water to dump on the small blaze. Another business owner grabbed his fire extinguisher.

“It had my adrenaline going,” Gilbert said. “I was afraid it would spread to other shops.”

The Kansas City Fire Department said the cause of the fire is still under investigation.

“Our crew got there right away and did an amazing job containing the fire quickly and saving a lot of property,” said Jason Spreitzer, spokesman for the department and a customer of The (New) Dime Store. He praised the neighbors who stepped up.

“I get tears in my eyes; how special that everyone did that,” he said. “That is the Christmas spirit. This is why you have to shop local.”

Kim and her husband, who was 51 when he died, became partners in the shop in 2009 and then sole owners in 2011. She has been in negotiations with her landlord on a new lease to downsize the space. She said retail sales have dropped in the last four or five years with the rise of Amazon and online shopping.

Harris met with her insurance adjuster Wednesday morning while the smell of smoke still lingered throughout the shop, even in the basement. Soot covered some of the merchandise.

The Southtown Council and Brookside Business Association set up a GoFundMe site Tuesday night to help cover some of her expenses, including insurance deductibles that won’t be reimbursed. By 2 p.m. Wednesday, it had raised $4,728 from 96 donors on its goal of $5,000.

“Kim is a very private person but people want to help,” said Sean Ackerson, manager of the Brookside district, who added that the dime store also had a break-in in August. “Some of these businesses depend on the holiday sales. With the nice weather, they were seeing sales that they hadn’t seen in a long time. The momentum was coming back and now this.”

Fans also reached out on the shop’s Facebook page: “Love that store, Kim we are here to help.” “You’ve got support. We’ll just have to buy more.”