The News Nobody Wanted, and Everybody Understood

For 96 years, there's been a Vidler running the show at Vidler's 5 & 10 on Main Street in East Aurora. That could be about to change.

On Friday, Oct. 23, word got out that third-generation owner Don Vidler and his cousin, Cliff DeFlyer, have put the family business up for sale. The four connected 19th-century buildings the store calls home, stretching from 676 to 694 Main Street, are listed separately with Jerry Thompson II of Century 21 for $2,749,000. Together they cover more than 25,000 square feet, including three apartments, and the store itself fills more than 20,000 of those square feet. The price for the business isn't being made public.

The reason is simple, and it's a pretty good problem to have. Business is good. Cliff has been at the store for more than 40 years and turned 68 this year. Don is 70. Nobody in the next generation of the family is interested in taking over, so the two of them decided to sell while things are going well.

"It is a little bittersweet," Don said. He and Cliff had hoped to keep the family legacy going.

Here's the part everybody wants to hear first: Vidler's isn't going anywhere right now. "We're open. We plan to stay open. Nothing's going to change day to day," Don said. They're still bringing in merchandise and selling it, and they're in no rush.

A Spool of Thread and a Six-Week Bet

To understand why this news lands so hard around here, you've got to go back to 1930. Wall Street had crashed the October before, and the country was sliding into what we now call the Great Depression. Robert S. Vidler Sr. picked that moment to open a store.

Family legend says it started with his mother-in-law. She was tired of going all the way to Buffalo, 16 miles away, just to buy a spool of thread. Robert figured the village could use a store of its own.

On June 21, 1930, he opened the Fair 5¢ to $1.00 Store in part of a rented building on Main Street. It had two aisles and roughly 900 square feet. The established merchants in town weren't impressed, and plenty of them bet the new guy wouldn't make it six weeks.

He made it. That September, a toy company called Fisher-Price opened on the block right behind him. In 1946, Robert bought the building he'd been renting and doubled the size of the store. He waited years before putting the family name on it, partly because he didn't want to embarrass the Vidler name if the store failed. Once he was confident it would last, it became Vidler's.

Bob, Ed and a Basement Full of Toys

By 1949, Robert's sons, Bob and Ed, were both working at the store full time. In 1954, an addition expanded the first floor and the basement, and Ed turned the new basement space into a bigger Toyland. Vidler's became known for having one of the better toy selections in the area.

Then came the first real test since the Depression. In 1960, East Aurora Plaza opened with a W.T. Grant as its anchor, part of one of the fastest-growing variety chains in the country. Within two years, two other local five-and-tens were gone. Vidler's answered by advertising in the local papers for the first time.

The Vidlers never just ran a store, either. Ed helped start East Aurora's Sidewalk Sale, which first ran in July 1968 and still comes back every year. In 1972, Vidler's sponsored the village's very first Christmas Carolcade, with maybe a few hundred people showing up. By 2019, it was drawing more than 4,000.

Robert Vidler died in 1969 at 79. By then, he'd built something his sons were more than ready to carry.

Those Vidler Boys

If you grew up anywhere near Buffalo, there's a good chance you know Bob and Ed even if you've never set foot in East Aurora. In 1980, the store showed up in a Liberty Bank TV ad with Peter Graves of "Mission: Impossible" fame, and people started asking about that old five-and-dime. Then in 1987, the first Bob and Ed commercial hit the air.

They were corny on purpose, full of puns, and they ran on regional TV for more than 20 years. The two brothers became genuine local celebrities.

That same year, 1987, Cliff DeFlyer joined the business as the first of the third generation. Ed's daughter, Beverly, came aboard in the 1990s, right around the time Business Week and Martha Stewart Living were telling the rest of the country about the place. In 1999, Vidler's expanded into one more storefront and became what it is now, four connected buildings and close to 20,000 square feet.

In 2009, Ed's son Don joined too. That's also the year the big Vidler on the Roof got hoisted into place up top. It's been a roadside landmark ever since.

Bob died in 2013 at 88. Ed died in 2019 at 90. Between them, the two brothers put in a combined 110 years at the store. When Ed passed, longtime customers and neighbors came into Vidler's to remember him, and local businesses like the Aurora Theatre spoke about how much he'd always supported them.

The Kid Who Came Home

Don didn't have to come back. His dad never pressured him to join the family business and was proud when he earned a four-year degree. Don studied history at Hamilton College, graduating in 1978, and then took a job in the textile and apparel industry in New York City.

But he'd worked in the store as a kid. When his two daughters were in college and his dad was slowing down, he and his wife were drawn back to East Aurora. He slid right into the job, working for some years alongside his sister and then with Cliff.

Beverly put the family's feelings into words at the store's 85th anniversary in 2015, crediting the men who built it. "Just very appreciative, too, of my grandfather and my uncle and my father," she said.

For Don, one of the best parts of the job has always been who walks through the door. He's talked about seeing old friends, high school buddies, neighbors and family, plus just about anybody who grew up in town and happens to be passing back through.

He's been there for the hard years, too. In 2020, the pandemic shut the store for about two and a half months. Through the Depression, two world wars and a few major blizzards, it had never been closed more than two or three days in a row. The shutdown forced them to postpone the 90th anniversary, so they threw a "90th + 1" celebration in the summer of 2021 instead.

Christmas is the most important time of year at the store, and it's also when Don feels the family history most. On the last night before they close for Christmas, he's said, he might just stand around for a bit and look the place over. "We did it for another year and got through," he said.

Walking Those Wooden Floors

If you've been, you know. The first section of the store still has its original wooden plank floors, a penny candy counter and rows of toys that seem to go on forever. These days there are more than 75,000 items spread across four buildings and two levels, and the store is about 20 times the size of the two-aisle shop Robert opened in 1930.

It hasn't been just a hometown stop for a long time. Even on a slow weekday, as many as 750 people come through. Bus tours roll in from across the country and from other countries, too. Since 2015, the store and the village have been the setting for eight made-for-TV holiday movies and counting, helped along by the store's work with the Buffalo Niagara Film Office. New York State has recognized Vidler's as one of its historic businesses.

A President's Law Office and a Piece of Main Street

The buildings carry their own stories. Some of them date back to the 1800s. And long before there was a five-and-dime here, a young lawyer named Millard Fillmore kept his first law office on Main Street, right on the spot where Vidler's stands now. Fillmore went on to become the 13th president of the United States.

That's a big part of why this listing matters beyond one family. Thompson has pointed out that these buildings help make Main Street what it is, and he said there's already been plenty of interest. The realtor also told WGRZ that the priority is a buyer who understands what the store means to the village. "There is no consideration of [Vidler's] not staying there," the realtor said.

What Comes Next

In a perfect world, Don has said, the same buyer would take both the business and the buildings. If they end up selling separately, that's okay too. And if the new owners want them, Don and Cliff are willing to stick around as advisors.

Until then, it's business as usual. The doors still open at 9 a.m., the penny candy counter is still there, and the Vidler on the Roof is still keeping watch over Main Street.

For 96 years, three generations of one family kept a little store going through a depression, a world war, chain-store competition and a pandemic. Whoever writes the next chapter is inheriting something East Aurora has always treated like its own. Here's hoping they keep it going for another 96.