By Charly SHELTON

Montrose Shopping Park is home to many new and popular businesses like Starbucks, Arthur Murray Dance Studio and Montrose Candy Company, but there are also legacy businesses that have enjoyed decades in Montrose, servicing the area and getting to know their customers as they grow the business and become more than just a shop, but a part of the community.

Copy Network, located at 3600 Ocean View Blvd. #9 in the Ocean View Plaza, is celebrating 25 years of service in Montrose. Owner Andre Ordubegian started Copy Network in October 1991, after working for several years as an Xerox machine repairman. With three Xerox machines that Ordubegian refurbished himself, he opened the store in the newly built complex and has been in the same location ever since.

“I still have customers who come in here and say, ‘I remember the day you opened up.’ One of them actually brought in one of my invoices that had a date of 1991 on it. He still comes around,” Ordubegian said. “It has just been a fantastic neighborhood for me and most of my customers. I call them my friends and we’re all close to one another.”

Ordubegian feels a deep connection to the community and has many friends throughout the Shopping Park and the Crescenta Valley at large who help keep Copy Network going strong.

“Our motto is ‘quality, service and friendship.’ That’s what has kept us going. People keep coming back. If you keep a little bit of integrity and make sure that you’re always honest, people appreciate that. I have lifelong friends here in Montrose and that’s what has kept Copy Network in business all these years. The people who like our service also like our friendship.”

Community and service are the best ways to describe another business that has been around for over two decades – Merle Norman Cosmetics at 2341 Honolulu Ave.

They say the key to a successful business is location, location, location, which is true. Montrose is a very special location but in the case of Merle Norman after one visit it is obvious the power behind this very successful business lies with the two sisters who own it.

Kim Kelly and Kris Kline are sisters who inherited their knowledge of service from their mother Elloise Konrad Huschle.

“That’s a family thing,” Kris said of her business. “When our mom went to work in Temple City in 1955, this gentleman [where she worked] owned a dress shop and it had a counter that sold Merle Norman.”

Impressed, their mother went to Merle Norman Cosmetics corporate and was trained.

 When it came time for their mother to retire the sisters thought about staying with a dress shop but decided that Merle Norman Cosmetics was a better business path.

“We thought we would start out small and then we just grew,” Kline said. “It’s a happy business. People don’t walk out unhappy.”

Their business is the number four Merle Norman Cosmetics studio for sales in the nation. They were recognized for Excellence in Sales at the 80th Annual Merle Norman Cosmetics Convention.

“We get asked by other Merle Norman [business owners] how we are [successful],” Kline said.

Others wonder how they are so successful without being in a big mall.

“We contribute to our community. We have such a wonderful community,” Kline added. “I feel like people here want to shop small.”

And it is also because their customers are loyal and will travel to Montrose for the level of service provided.

“I drove all the way from Temple City and there is a store in Pasadena. But I come all this way out here because of Kris,” said a Merle Norman customer.

“And I come from Bakersfield,” said another customer.

And that seems to be the key to the success of small business: service by owners who really love what they do and enjoy the customers who have walked through their doors for decades.

  Charly Shelton