Family business started by Lebanese immigrant celebrates 100 years in Amherst

In downtown Amherst, N.S., one family-run business has been a mainstay in the community since before the Great Depression.

Mansour’s Menswear was established in 1924 by Mike Mansour, a Lebanese immigrant who came to Nova Scotia with his brother ahead of the First World War.

It has survived everything the past century has thrown at it — hard financial times, changing styles, global conflicts, the rise of the shopping mall and big-box stores, to COVID-19. 

On Friday, the Mansour family, including current president Mikhial Mansour and his father, Robert, celebrated the 100th anniversary of the store’s opening.

The festivities included special appearances from town dignitaries, and even horse-and-buggy rides, to mark the years when Mike Mansour and his brother first came to Canada and began their trade by travelling through New Brunswick and Nova Scotia by horse to sell their wares.

“A lot of the same people who Mike peddled at their house, their families still come into the store, so that’s an amazing connection,” said Mikhial Mansour in an interview with Information Morning Nova Scotia on Friday.

Mansour said he’s been a mainstay around the family business since he was five.

He thinks the store’s longevity can be explained by service.

“We dote on every customer,” he said.

In recent years, the store has weathered the pandemic by expanding the e-commerce side of the business. 

For Mansour, getting to continue the legacy first created by great-great-uncle Mike, and later maintained by his grandfather, Theo, his great-uncle, Norman, and his father before him, has been an honour. 

“I’m so blessed,” he said. “I’ve just had such a great life and I get to build on the foundation that was laid for me, and I just couldn’t be happier to do that.”