The Man’s Shop

I like technology. It has made my life better in countless ways. One of the things I really like about the times we live in is that I can go online, find exactly what I’m looking for, order it and have it shipped to me the next day – often for a fraction of what it would have cost me to purchase locally. I’m hardly nostalgic for the past. Time marches on and I’m good with that.
That said, I absolutely LOVE The Man’s Shop in St. Johns. This 75-​year-​old clothier is a throwback to simpler times and still standing decades after most stores of its kind have shuttered their doors and receded into distant memories. Other than a machine to authorize credit cards, the complete lack of technology in the place can make it easy to believe you have stepped into another era. Its cash registers, fixtures and even some of the employees date back to at least the 1960s! But, man, do they ever know their stuff.
The folks working there know me better than I do. I will be drawn to a certain item or style and, inevitably, Denny or Bob will point me in the direction of something better, something perfect. Consequently, the clothing I’ve purchased from The Man’s Shop fits me, looks better and lasts longer than anything in my closet – and certainly better than anything I’ve bought on my own.
The Man’s Shop is a stark reminder that technology hasn’t made everything better. I can’t recommend them highly enough. Here’s hoping for another 75 years!

I would love The Man’s Shop if I could ever shop there, but they close at 5 p.m. M-​Th and no working person can get in before they close! Yes, they’re open Fridays until 5:30 but I don’t know about you, but my commute is longer than 30 minutes on a Friday and there’s no way I could get in by 5:30. They are open on Saturday but if you, like me, have 20 things on your to-​do list every weekend and forget to get there by 5 — oh wait — they’re only open until 4 on Saturdays — so nevermind!
They do have a wonderful tailor and affordable prices for alterations but unfortunately, I’m not going to have to find another tailor in the neighborhood who’s actually open during the hours I’m not at work.

This place is lost in time… and, these folks know their stuff! Went here solely based upon Unilocal reviews so I thought I should return the favor.
I needed to suit up to officiate a wedding. Starting from absolute zero, Denny, The Suit Sommelier, kept hitting it out of the park. Eyeballed my large frame — jacket style and fit were perfect. Pants — yep! Went with a colored shirt and great tie — Denny even gave me a pocket silk lesson!
Seriously, this is old school in the best possible way. ANNND, prices are WAY reasonable! As gentrification sets in and our lives get even more casual, you know this place won’t be around forever. Take a step into this non-​pushy, laid back, classic men’s shop.

I had a very comfortable experience with The Man’s Shop today. I had never known how to even approach men’s fashion. I knew I wanted some help though. They made it very easy. They showed me the sale rack first and never pushed me towards any decision, but didn’t back down from making fairly direct recommendations. Don’t worry. They’ve spent lifetimes putting people into clothes and know their business.

The Man’s Shop tailored the suits for my groomsmen and I. They did a great job, were extremely easy to work with and were very nice. I would recommend them to anyone needing tailoring or anything they sell for that matter. Thanks again for dealing with 7 different personalities making is all look great.

Amazing first time experience!!!
I’m not a big fan of the corporate department stores due to a lack of passion. This is definitely not that place, so don’t expect it. Literally, 10 minutes after walking in I had a new outfit picked out, by a complete stranger, that I absolutely love. It’s like this guy is psychic, a few questions and answers he grabs a couple items and BAM! Done deal. What just happened… To top that, I am vertically challenged and he says to me, «Get yourself a cup of coffee a couple doors down and i’ll have these pants hemmed by the time you get back.» and it was so. Definitely gained a customer for life today.

A staple of St. Johns for decades. This is the first place I went to when I got a suit. It’s the only place I’ll go to as well. When I moved to Idaho, I would come back to St. Johns just to get my clothing from him.
My grandfather (RIP) would speak so highly of this place. I am very pleased to see that it’s still around and look forward to continuing my business there.

Amazing shop. They are so helpful, and even make alterations there if what you like does not fit you correctly. I love the vibe there as well.

Fantastic place. I’ll be attending a funeral in a few days and didn’t know or have anything I’d need. The service was great… my abnormal sizing wasn’t an issue, I was educated on proper etiquette and attire, and just generally had a pleasant experience.
I’ll certainly be going back under better circumstances.

A classic, independent clothing store like we used to have before the «malling» of America.
After years of driving by, I stopped in thinking they might have a decent woolen winter coat. Indeed they did and I ended up purchasing two; plus a Pendleton vest.
Nice thing is they do alterations on site; free for items purchased there. Will do any other alternations you need including woman’s clothes.
A bit of step back in time but the folks are friendly and helpful without pushing you to buy everything you touch.
If you’re in the St. Johns area, give ‘em a visit.

I had stopped into The Man’s Shop a few times before just to look around. Yesterday I went in to pick up some suits my husband had dropped off for tailoring.
The older gentlemen working greeted me right away and was able to grab the suits quickly. He let me know that all of the alterations my husband requested but one had been completed. I guess they were not able to lengthen the arm length on one of the suits because it had already been done before and there was no more fabric to work with. The man apologized and deducted the price of that alteration from my total.
The Man’s Shop has some nice looking shoes and hats. Probably a place for me to keep in mind for the next time I need to get my husband a gift.
I was also told by the associate that they also do alterations on women’s clothing as well. This will prove to be very useful the next time I need new pants. (I’m cursed with short legs!)

Since it so near Christmas, and because they had several Pendleton items and I have a Pendleton-​loving brother, I stepped in. What a pleasure.
This shop opened in 1940 and really it’s kind of a miracle that it’s survived the changing tides and fortunes of American business, but St. Johns is the kind of place that allows businesses like these to survive. It used to be there were a lot of shops like this all over Portland, and it used to be these shops were particularly well-​represented in smaller towns and in college towns. I have several older male cousins who bought a lot of their clothes when they were in school in Eugene and Corvallis at haberdasheries. Like the nice gentleman owner said to me «We’ve lost a lot of friends» in response to my comments about remembering these kind of shops so well.
We had a nice chat about how much we both loved Pendleton items, and he was kind enough to show me some of the particularly excellent items they had (one was a beautiful robe in one of the classic Pendleton patterns). They have an assortment of suits and casual items along with shoes and other elements that make up the wardrobe of a well-​dressed man. I really liked that they had a fine selection of hats, the most I’ve seen outside of John Helmer (if you’ve not seen their selection of hats at their shop in downtown Portland, you should go and look).
It’s a comfort to see a shop like this thriving in St. Johns. When I wait at the bus stop right next door to this store, people stop constantly to look in the windows and are in and out all the time. It’s definitely for the clothes, but I think it’s also for the history and the old-​fashioned wonderful service. Be sure to come and see for yourself what it takes to survive for 75 years and remain a success, but also be sure to buy some of the great classic items for a gentlemanly wardrobe.

Great place for fashionable finds! LOVEEE how knowledgable and friendly everyone is here. If you want to shop local THIS is the place.

Great store. Super friendly people. They’re happy to talk to you and help you, and have a nice inventory. Picked up a English style blazer that fit perfectly off the rack, on sale for $ 50. I’ll be back!

Bob is a wonderful man. My fiancé and I went to check out this shop due to great Unilocal reviews. We were looking for a nice suit for our wedding and Bob knew exactly what we were looking for after taking a moment to hear our wedding wishes. We had already gone to Nordstroms and a couple of other chain stores. If you are looking for personalization, this is the place. It is a gem of a find. Free tailoring and Bob even shipped the suit to us. It is rare to find this type of service in a fast paced world.
Chat with Bob about sports especially his son’s plan to go to the 2014 Winter Olympics to see USA hockey.
Support local and tax free Oregon!

Great service! Free Tailoring! Clothing for grown men, not teenagers or wannabe rap stars! Pants that stay up on their own! Suits that don’t look like they’re a size too small! Great Prices! Hats! Enjoy St. Johns T-​Shirts! There’s pretty much nothing to not like about this place, unless you have no interest in buying men’s clothing. I just bought a tan microfiber sports coat, on sale for about half the price I would have expected, and they tailored it for free. I ordered it on a Saturday and it was ready Monday. Please, please, please shop here so they will stay in business and I will continue to have a great place to buy clothes! My next purchase is going to be a custom-​tailored tux. Yep, they’ve got ‘em! I don’t care where you live in the Portland Metro area — this place is worth the trip.

Flew in my NYC and chose this place to go shopping! (I normally rely on Unilocal to find the best places for men’s clothes shopping as PDX offers a lot more than the Macy’s and Nordstrom’s.)
Based on the other reviews, my initial thought that it was going to be a more «stylized» place, but let this be a put off at all. I walked in and saw it was filled with men’s clothes. Nothing bejeweled, but also not just worker man’s wear i.e., carharts or dickies, but it ran had quite a variety of men’s wear i.e., Pendleton Woolen Mills, knits, vests, slacks, pants, shoes, belts, hats.
The owner’s spent some time talking to me and we talked about the University of Portland since they are right next to the St. John’s Bridge.
But to the good stuff, so it’s end of January when I visited, and I’m looking up and down, left and right to find brown/​tan corduroy pants — The Lion’s Den Man’s Shop was the last place on my list I had to visit, and not only did he have the pants I was looking for — he had a grey one and sold me both pairs for a deal — two corduroy pants for $ 29.99 each! As a New Yorker, I couldn’t find that kind of deal in NYC. I love PDX! (They also do complimentary tailoring too.) If this was NYC, I easily would have spent at least $ 70 per each pair.
The owners are going into their 72 year of business — so I will definitely be back year after year.

You don’t see too many places advertise themselves as a Man Store, but The Lion’s Den lives up to it’s name. I’ve been trying to upgrade my wardrobe lately but haven’t been impressed with department store offerings and over priced labels in the Pearl. I want to wear the clothes, I don’t want my clothes to wear me.
The fine gentlemen at the Lion’s Den share this belief. Everything they offer is designed to accent your personality, which requires getting to know your salesman. The brothers that run the store are affable storytellers. I ended up in the store for an hour just trading stories, talking about fashion, and browsing shoe catalogs. They were honest about the availability of shoes they could order for me. I wear a size 13, so I appreciated not being strung along.
Not only that, it’s the small details that count. All of their shoes are made by the same designer, who they know. They operate a real, steel cash register. They have a tailor on site (depending on the day) for consultations. Everything they sell is priced exceptionally well for the quality. Every item is reasonable, and probably cheaper than anything else in town.
My only problem is that their stock skews Italian. I’m a bit more of a British man myself, which is why I only ended up with a pair of shoes, but it was the service that stuck with me.

The Man Shop is a classic haberdashery of the old American style. They offer a range of Men’s clothing from suits to tuxedos to shoes to button-​shirts to various furnishings. When I wandered up to the window while browsing in St. John’s and saw some classic Men’s suits in the window, fedora and all, I had to stop in and see what was up.
I tried the door but it was locked, and a nice lady came running over to open the door. «Are you closed?» «Well, we were closing up, but come on in!» How nice!
I didn’t want to hold them up long, they were trying to escape before the long weekend on a very hot day, so I made a quick circuit through the store, stopping long enough to notice the classic styles, the very reasonable prices, and the wide selection of clothing. Nothing here looked too trendy, but that’s a good thing. Everything in the shop had a fairly timeless style, the understated look. Plenty of high-​quality brands, but the kind of thing you can wear year in and year out… staple clothing.
5 minutes of browsing nets this place a solid 4-​stars in my book. I’m sure when I go back and visit it will jump to 5. And I will be back. One can never have too many classic suits… and the shoe selection looks pretty dang solid.
Oh, and SUPER NICE owners!

St John’s reminds me of one of those small-​towns in the midwest, where everybody knows everybody, and The Man Shop seems like one of those stores from the 50’s where you walk in and the workers already know what you like and tell you «Hey, I just got some new clothes in, I think you’re going to like» and you end up buying all of them. Probably because it IS like that.
The store is family owned, and has been around for more than 50 years. Bob and Jerry are brothers who are the current owners, and they’re very hospitable. Need your first suit? You won’t get a better fit than from someone who’s been doing it for 50 years! Need to rent a tux for a special occasion? Get it here! They have great selection, and even better service. From casual to classy, they have a little bit of everything in here, and prices are FAR from what you find at the mall. Walking through the front door is like a timewarp back to 1950 when customer service actually mattered!
Great store, great service, great prices! A+++ would shop again