HOUSTON — Customers of a popular formal wear chain are furious after the company abruptly shut its doors and stopped answering calls.
All Al’s Formal Wear locations in the Houston area and across the country are now closed and customers with important events coming up have been left scrambling.
Stephanie Moehlmann and Daniel Thompson are having to pick out tuxedos for the second time before their wedding.
“When we got the news, I went into a full-blown panic,” Moehlmann said.
It’s only 18 days before their big day and they’re having to make some big choices, once again.
“Now we’re having a debate, do we do tie or no tie?” Moehlmann said.
They thought they’d already handled all of this and the box on their to-do list was checked months ago.
They’d made $100 deposits for all of their groomsmen and the groomsmen had put down their own $100 deposits when they were fitted for their tuxes.
Now, it seems all of that money has been lost.
“We found out yesterday,” Moehlmann said. “My coordinator gave me a phone call, I was on the way to get some wedding stuff, she said ‘Hey you might want to go call Al’s because there’s rumors that they’re closing.’”
When she called, all she got was a recorded message saying, “Your call cannot be completed as dialed.”
On the doors of the stores are vague notes:
“Sorry we are closed today. We apologize for any inconvenience. If you are a customer returning your tuxedo from the weekend, you will not be charged late fees and may keep your tuxedo. Please visit our website daperanddashing.com”
“I’m fixing to see the website they just put up there, if that don’t work then I don’t know, it looks like I’m out of my money,” a man said while walking to the front of the Al’s location on FM 1960.
The situation has been more than an inconvenience for customers who can’t even get their money back.
“Anything that they’ve paid, they present with a receipt we’re going to take care of it for them,” said Mattie Harvey, a Men’s Wearhouse manager.
Luckily, there are other tux rental stores that are ready to pick up the customers Al’s apparently left out in the cold, like the Men’s Wearhouse location on FM 1960 in Houston.
“We can do it within a week,” Harvey said. “I’ve been here for 30 years now and I can turn it around in, I’d say, a day.”
It has been a lot of additional stress for Stephanie and Daniel but they are hopeful things are going to work out.
“They were real strict about wanting you to return it the day after but they weren’t too strict about closing their doors on everybody,” Daniel said.