When the bookstore next door moved out, Deb saw her opportunity. Golden had no menswear store – and with guys just starting to reach for designer jeans for the first time, the timing couldn’t have been better. On December 7, 1985, Top Notch Men’s Wear opened its doors.
Love played no small part in what came next. Brent met Deb, moved to Golden for her, and became her partner in life and in business. Together, they grew a one-woman menswear shop into a thriving multi-category lifestyle retailer that has served Golden’s residents and visitors for four decades.
The store’s evolution mirrors Golden’s own growth. Within its first year, Top Notch had already expanded beyond menswear – adding Black and Lee tuxedo rentals, Pierre Cardin luggage, wallets, and accessories. Women’s clothing followed in 1987, driven by customer demand.
By 1996, Brent’s Board Shop was added, bringing snowboards and hardgoods to a mountain town that was coming into its own as a destination. Shoes, jewellery, kids’ clothing, and workwear followed over the years. Today, Carhartt is their biggest brand — a telling sign of how well they read their market – alongside lines like Dovetail and Ariat for women in the trades. The store also carries a locally designed “Golden State of Mind” apparel line, created by their daughter.
One of the most important lessons Deb and Brent learned early was deceptively simple: stock what your customer actually buys, not what you think is cool. “They’re the ones that basically dictate what you carry,” says Deb. “It’s not always the brands I think are great, because sometimes they just don’t sell enough – whether they’re too expensive or just a little left field.”
That insight extends to where they source their products. After years of buying trips to Vancouver trade shows, Deb and Brent realized the fashion skewed too urban for their community. It’s the kind of market intelligence that only comes from years of listening – to your customers, your community, and the town itself.
That responsiveness runs through everything they do. Customers suggest brands; Deb and Brent look into whether they can carry them. People ask for items that aren’t in stock; the store special orders them. “We try to accommodate people as much as we can,” says Deb. The result is a store that feels genuinely shaped by the people who shop there.
Ask Deb what has helped the business thrive and the answer is immediate: the community. “Local relationships are so important for growth – with every local, the contractors, the tradespeople who have supported year after year.” The growth of tourism has also been a tailwind, as Golden has built an international profile around its surroundings. But it was the COVID-19 pandemic, counterintuitively, that delivered one of the business’s most meaningful boosts. “When everyone shopped local, it made a huge difference. That period really showed us the strength of this community.”
There’s also something deeper at play – a sense of belonging that shapes how Top Notch operates.
“A lot of Golden is nice that way,” Deb reflects. “You don’t have to be anything but what you want to be.” That quality – authentic, unpretentious, rooted – is exactly what Top Notch BBS has always embodied.
Top Notch BBS is, in Brent’s words, a breadwinner – not a side project or a passion play, but a business that has supported their family, paid staff, and sustained itself through four decades of change. Along the way, Deb and Brent purchased the building that houses the store, an investment that anchored the business and will allow them to retire comfortably. “Being here opened opportunities we didn’t expect,” Deb says. “Buying the building was something I didn’t imagine when we started.”
The business also gave them something harder to quantify. “It allowed me to spend a lot of time with our daughter growing up,” Deb says – a reminder that in a small town, the lifestyle a business affords can matter just as much as the bottom line.
As Deb and Brent look toward retirement, their hope is that someone will carry Top Notch BBS forward. The brand is trusted, the supplier relationships are long-established, and the location – in the heart of a growing mountain town – is as strong as ever. Those relationships, built over nearly 40 years, are a significant part of what makes this business valuable: brands typically partner with only one retailer per town, meaning the lines Top Notch carries aren’t easily replicated elsewhere.
“Yes, we would choose Golden again,” says Deb without hesitation. “It is a great place to live and raise a family. We’ve made a good living and will be able to retire comfortably. I’m not a city person – I like doing business in a small town.”
For entrepreneurs considering Golden as a place to build something, Top Notch BBS is proof of what’s possible: a business built on community, adaptability, and genuine care for the place you call home – thriving for four decades and counting.
