Cricket Shop
Clothier
1971-c.1985
Bush River Road and Two Notch Road
Columbia, SC 29210
FAMILIES: Politis
The Cricket Shop was a women’s apparel store founded in 1971 by Murray (1932-2015) and Kay Politis (1939-2007) in Columbia, South Carolina at the Dutch Square Mall off Bush River Road. Murray was born in New York and raised in Greensboro, North Carolina. He moved to Columbia in 1971 around the time he opened his first Cricket Shop. Politis opened a second store in Dutch Square Mall called Miss Cricket Limited later that same year. In 1977, Murray opened a third Cricket Shop in the new Columbia Mall (now called Columbia Place Mall) off Two Notch Road. All three stores sold items such as sundresses, “hot pants”, jeans, coats, sweaters, handbags, and other accessories. A news article published in 1977 for the opening of the third Cricket Shop describes the store as featuring junior ready-to-wear clothes with an emphasis on “quality, up-to-date fashions and moderate pricing.”1 The Cricket Shops closed in the mid-1980s.
1 “Third Cricket In Mall,” Columbia Record, August 9, 1977, 32.
Main Image: Cropped advertisement with Cricket Shop logo, 1971. Reprinted from The State, May 20, 1971.
Above Image: Left: Advertisement for the Cricket Shop, 1971. Reprinted from The State, May 20, 1971. Right: Advertisement for the Cricket Shop, 1972. Reprinted from The State, September 10, 1972.