Best Definition & Meaning

The company was founded by Sydney Lewis and Frances Lewis. In 1996, the company operated 169 Best stores and 11 Best Jewelry stores in 23 states, as well as a nationwide mail-order service. A close inspection of over a thousand doors across 23 buildings proved that the district had already deployed compatible BEST 9K locks capable of securing buildings fast. Middle English, going back to Old English betst, betest, derivative of betst, best best entry 1 At the time of the second filing, Best operated 169 Best stores and 11 Best Jewelry stores in 23 states, and a nationwide mail-order service. This was followed by the acquisition of Ashby’s, a 9-store women’s clothing chain, and the opening of four Best Jewelry stores in the Washington D.C. Their Parham Road headquarters, built in 1981 and designed by Hardy Holzman Pfeiffer, was notable for an American Institute of Architects award and the use of Art Deco eagles rescued from a New York building. As a result, the company, as well as the Lewises, gathered a significant collection of 20th-century cowboy spin bonus art.

The first showroom was at 4909 West Marshall Street in Richmond, just across the street from the new Willow Lawn Shopping Center. Lewis thought of selling additional merchandise along with the bills for encyclopedias. The company was in existence for four decades, until 1998. With dealers in every major city and region across the United States, you have immediate access to all BEST products. Read More Opinions expressed in the examples do not represent those of Merriam-Webster or its editors.

Best Products Company, Inc., or simply Best, was a chain of American catalog showroom retail stores founded by Sydney and Frances Lewis in 1957 and formerly headquartered in Richmond, Virginia. As a cost-saving measure, Best jointly published its catalog with Service Merchandise (founded by Harry Zimmerman) and Modern Merchandising (founded by Harold Roitenberg), and had regional non-compete agreements with those chains. Saleable versions of the merchandise (usually boxed and/or in its original packaging) would then be retrieved from storage and delivered to a customer service area for subsequent purchase. Best employed the “catalog showroom” concept for many of its product offerings. Much of the Lewis Collection can be seen at the Virginia Museum of Fine Arts, and a café named after the company opened in that museum in 2010. The company had a strong sense of promotion and artistic sensibilities; it was legend in artistic circles that it would trade store merchandise for art.