Bad Boys was incorporated in March of 1983 and we open for business in July of that year. Our first store was in at Aldine and Broadway. We took over a seedy bar called "Bea's Liquors". It was a dump and had to be completely gutted and rebuilt. The majority of the work was done by my step-father, Nick Kelly (my business partner at the time) and me. Broadway was really the center of Boystown at that time and the area had a nickname of "Newtown". We actually came up with a t-shirt that said "boystown" on it back in 1983 and I don't know if that's what started the renaming process or not. It's just where all the "boys" were hanging at the time and the area being known as "Newtown", that "Boys-Town" just sort of fit. We opened a second location in Andersonville in 1989, when we purchased the building that now has the Hamburger Marys. It was my favorite building in the city. It was the old Swedish National Bank Building built about 1908 and had been converted from a single level lofted bank space into two floors. I think our store in Andersonville was a little premature, but we tried working out of that location twice, we sold the building in 2004. We also opened another location in the Century Mall. That lasted three year until the mall need the space to convert into theaters. In 1996 we moved to Halsted St. and have been there since. It has been a great location, with lots of great businesses and great customers. Halsted St. had already grabbed the title of the center of Boystown in 1996 from Broadway when we moved there. The Streetscape was completed in 1998 after a tumultuous fight with neighbors opposing the rainbow colored pylons. The Mayor said it would happen, and it did! The Halsted strip has seen a continued decline in the number of retailers on the street. We used to have Candy Junction, Gallimaufry Gallery, Flashy Trash, We're Everywhere, Evil Clown Records, and many others. With the building of Marshall's, and other national chains in the area, I think that took a lot of the boutique qualities away from the Halsted area, along with some of their profits. And now with the building of the new Target at Wilson and Broadway, I can only imagine how this is going to hurt our small boutiques. Halsted St. has also gentrified over the past few years. You see many more straight people along the street today than you did five years ago and even more in the bars. During the day there are baby strollers everywhere! Our decision to retire has been coming for a few years. We bought an ocean front property in Akumal, Mexico on the Caribbean three years ago and we just love it there. We actually read online line while in Mexico, that Chicago had been granted the 2006 Gay Games. We knew we wanted to be a part of that historical event and start thinking then about the retirement gig. We were a major sponsor of the Games and I think Bad Boys was one of the centers of attraction while people visited here. We could've been open 24/7 and had business during that week. It was a great event for the city to host. I think that we are trying to wrap things up by the end of December or the first week of January. If the first few days of our sale have been any indication, we may be closed sooner! Our goal for the near future in to just relax for a while and take care of our beach property in Mexico, our real estate here in Chicago and of course take care of our little girl Kayelee. We are really going to miss our wonderful, generous customers who have made such a wonderful life a possibility for us. Thanks again to all of our friends who have supported us, you have touched our hearts and we will never forget you. Randy Franks Bad Boys WE'LL MISS YOU BAD BOY'S! boi Magazine