From Good Buys to Goodbyes: After 20 Years, the Good Family Is Closing ‘It’s All Good’
The children’s section of the store is packed with summer items.
Perhaps no name links a family business better than this one.
“It’s All Good” has been more than a colloquial catchphrase to indicate everything is alright for Seven Mile Beach visitors over the last 20 years.
This is the name of an establishment at 2307 Dune Drive run by the Good family – the husband-wife team of Wil and Elaine Good along with their grown children, Corinne and Brooke.
It has literally been a good fit, with four family members from Ephrata, Pa., coming to Avalon to spend more time living and working together. Their big-selling items over the years include a classic Avalon T-shirt, and a large blanket made of sweatshirt material that carries into the colder months.
And the family ends on a good note, planning to close doors after the Thanksgiving holiday to pursue new endeavors. Elaine has retired from the Ephrata Area School District. Wil is about to retire from a screen-printing business. He comes up with the designs on the T-shirts, which enable It’s All Good to charge reasonable prices by saving the step of contracting an outside company to do it.
“We came here on a family vacation and wound up exploring both our retail dreams and this journey as a family,” says Corinne, who commutes to Avalon on weekends after a week of accounting work back in Pennsylvania.
“Our tag line was comfort clothes for summers down the shore. So, we have the T-shirts, the sweatshirts … and all the things you yearn for.
“We prided ourselves on providing high-quality, good, fresh designs at a reasonable price. We only raised our prices once during the 20 years. We wanted our customers to come in here and buy something for everyone in the family.”
A vast ensemble is here. The Good family designs and prints the majority of tees and sweatshirts, carrying infant sizes all the way to adult XXL.
In the kids’ clothing section, Three Friends Apparel’s original fabric designs are created with the hearts of children in mind, Corinne says. The company offers sizes 2T to 10 in most styles.
There is ladies’ clothing, men’s clothing, and an assortment of sunglasses, caps and sun hats.
As Corinne views the area dynamic, people have routines spanning the beach, ice-cream establishments and restaurants. The family wanted to fit into those routines.
Now perhaps they will enjoy it further.
“I can count on one hand the number of times I physically touched the sand in one summer,” she says with a laugh. “That is something I am looking forward to after we are finished with the business.
“We were happy that people came to visit us. We’ve really enjoyed it. Twenty is a nice, round number.”
Much unfolded during that time. The family grew up.
The business started in 2003 after the family had purchased an Avalon address in 1999.
Corinne attended the University of Virginia as a business major and became a CPA.
Brooke attended Messiah College in Mechanicsburg, Pa. (a few miles west of Harrisburg), and became a prominent star. She not only played on several outstanding field hockey teams but excelled individually. Brooke was named All-Commonwealth three times from 2000 to 2002. She also made the NCAA Final Four All-Tournament Team as a senior in 2002, and was a second-team NCAA All-American.
As a coach, Brooke not only led her team to several Mid-Atlantic Conference championships, but the school’s first-ever Division III national championship in 2016. Brooke also was named Coach of the Year by the National Field Hockey Coaches Association, a first in program history.
Customers may be pleasantly shocked to discover that celebrity aspect.
Yes, the nice lady selling shirts to the Avalon community prepares to enter her 11th year as a college coaching force. She has to recruit players and plan schedules.
But that’s coming later. Avalon provides a respite for her.
“Having the opportunity to be in the store every day and enjoy all these touch points with the customers has been a wonderful experience for me,” says Brooke, who majored in marketing at Messiah and learned the branding skills she uses here.
“We have literally gotten to see families grow up in front of our eyes. One day you are selling T-shirts for these children and the next you find that the parents are buying the big blanket as a going-away present for their kids who are now going off to college.”
One reason the partnership worked is the complementary skills of the individuals. Corinne crunched the numbers, Brooke marketed the products, Wil placed the designs on the shirt and Elaine facilitated all of it. She also savored the Avalon hub for the Pennsylvania family, which is spread between Broomall, Mechanicsburg and Ephrata when they are not here.
Coming to Avalon, they gathered under one roof. And ran a business together.
“Being together has been a great part of it,” Elaine says. “We always said we would do this as long as everybody is in. All of our lives are changing. I retired a couple years ago and Wil is going to do it soon, so this makes sense.
“When he started the business, we figured it would take us right up to retirement.”
It is going to.
Wil has been in the screen-printing business for 50 years. He had high-level contracts in Ephrata at one point, but when the North American Free Trade Agreement took jobs offshore in the 1990s, he went the other way. He came onshore, and discovered Avalon.
“We came down here, got involved in the business and it has really been something,” he says. “It’s been a nice ride for all of us. We are going to spend a lot of time down here after we get out of the business.”
As one might suspect, Wil thought ahead. The family had purchased its storefront property, which took the pressure off the summer-sales obligation merchants must satisfy in a short time. There was no rent.
It’s All Good created a niche and enjoyed two decades with its customers.
As the Goods look back, they think it’s all great.
