Craft Showcase

The Craft Showcase was a national mall-based arts-and-crafts chain that operated under Cole National Corporation, not an independent Monroeville-only business. Federal trademark records show THE CRAFT SHOWCASE was filed on January 23, 1974, and the mark’s description is especially revealing: the business was framed not just as a retailer, but as a provider of individual and class arts-and-crafts instruction. That suggests the stores were built around both merchandise and guided hobby-making, which fits the broader 1970s craft boom.

By the late 1970s and early 1980s, Craft Showcase appears to have specialized in project-driven hobby and decorative craft merchandise rather than general art supplies alone. Surviving branded material from the chain includes a 1979 booklet, Macrame At Its Best, credited to The Craft Showcase and Cole National Corporation. That surviving publication shows the brand was marketing not only supplies but also patterns, kits, and home craft ideas tied to the DIY culture of the era.

The chain was still operating as a formal corporate division in 1982, when buyer Joyce Davidson identified herself in congressional testimony as part of the Craft Showcase Division, Cole National Corporation, at 5885 Grant Avenue, Cleveland, Ohio. Her statement also notes substantial annual spending on display models, which helps explain the chain’s visual, demonstration-heavy retail style. In other words, Craft Showcase was the kind of store where shoppers were meant to browse finished examples, imagine making them at home, and buy the materials to do so.

The larger chain later changed hands. Contemporary reporting in the Los Angeles Times says House of Fabrics acquired the Cleveland-based 35-store Craft Showcase chain in February 1984. That same reporting describes the stores as selling items such as needlepoint and cake-decorating kits, with locations concentrated mainly in the Midwest and East Coast.

At Monroeville Mall, Craft Showcase is firmly documented as an upper-level tenant during the classic Dawn of the Dead era. It is featured as a background store in the movie, Dawn of the Dead. A reconstructed 1978 tenant roster lists Craft Showcase on the upper level, and a separate storefront-location study places it specifically in lot 37.

By 1981, the store was still present in the mall. The Monroeville Mall Brochure and Directory (1981) says the directory was updated as of November 1981, and the brochure image shows “The Craft Showcase” listed under Books/Cards/Photos/Hobbies as unit 231, with phone number 373-3700. That is an important detail because it suggests either a renumbering system change, a relocation within the mall, or a reclassification of the store’s merchandise emphasis between the 1978 and 1981 directory formats.