A Front Street mainstay of the tourist trade is celebrating its 20th anniversary.

Onion Jack’s Trading Post has notched up the milestone and is still going strong — despite a long-term downturn in tourist numbers.

And owner Richard Lines, who inherited the business from his father Frank, said the key to survival was simple — good service products pitched at the right price.

Mr Lines added: “If you give the customer a good deal for their money, they will come back. I think as Bermudians we really need to get into that.

“We get a lot of customers who come back year after year for that reason.”

Mr Lines officially took over the store last year, after his father, who had amassed decades in the wholesale industry, died.

He said: “My father bought Onion Jack’s around ten years ago — he taught me everything about this business.

“He was general manager of Bermuda Wholesalers, which used to supply all the tourist shops with everything years ago.

“A lot of the success of this industry is owed directly to him.”

Mr Lines said: “My father wanted to keep prices as low as possible so people feel they’re getting a good deal.”

Onion Jack’s also operates a wholesale operation, supplying other stores and hotels with tourism-related products, as well as a custom T-shirt and towel service.

Mr Lines said that falling tourist numbers had impacted the business.

He added: “My direct input from here is only from the last year — but last year was a tough year for us as it was for a lot of people.

“But I don’t want to say it’s just tourism figures — we have to ask ourselves what we can do to alleviate it or whether we’re contributing to it.”

And he said that, although sales had dipped for the first two weeks of this month, he expected to record a second successive increase in the sales by month end.

Mr Lines added: “I’ve worked very hard to similar or better products that are cheaper so I can pass that on to my customers. As a result, I have seen an increase in sales and we will gladly take that.

”As a country with the products we produce in tourism we have to make sure, we have to be very exact, in providing that value to our customers.

“These days, five cents makes a big difference, whereas in the 1980s people weren’t bothered about that.

“But, if the quality and the service is good you engage customers. We have people calling from the States asking to sell them stuff.

“A good attitude improves the whole feel of the place and you get people smiling as they come in.

“You really have to work to earn it these days and we all need to get back to that.

“Bermudians are very good business people — we have the skills to weather this storm.

“We do need to improve some things, we need to adapt. We’re a little bit behind the times with our reaction speed, but we’re moving in the right direction.

“I don’t think tourism is dead — it needs work, but it’s not dead.”

Mr Lines said: “I’ve got great staff too — the group we have now is fantastic. You often hear people lamenting about the Bermudian workforce and that they don’t want to work.

“Maybe some people are like that, but not in my experience.”

Mr Lines quit his job as general manager with fast food shop KFC to take over Onion Jack’s, which has four full-time and two part-time staff.

He said: “It was a benefit to have worked in a service industry. I’ve got several years in food service and hospitality and that taught me a lot. I learned a great deal and there are a lot of things that cross over.”

Mr Lines added that he had altered the store’s layout, widened aisles and brightened the interior with painted floors rather than carpets, as well as displaying T shirts in frames on the walls.

He said: “I tried to open it up and create better access, for people in wheelchairs for example.

“People want to see the merchandise and touch it and I’ve tried to make that easier.”

And Mr Lines added: “I hope the entire industry does well because if we don’t we can’t employ people and that hurts where we’re trying to go with this country.”