Greg Thomajan, the Dashing Haberdasher behind Zareh, Calls it Quits

“I was always struck by his dedication to customer service; it’s probably the best I’ve seen, and I’m in that business,” said Bob Reynolds, the chief executive of Putnam Investments and a client for 30 years.

Service, as defined by Thomajan, means having his tailor whip up alterations in an hour, then delivering the suit straight to the client’s office, along with the bill, so a spouse doesn’t catch wind of a spending spree. He is the man you call when your pants split on the subway just before you need to close a million-dollar deal, and the one who will open the shop on a Saturday to attend to your daughter’s prom dress on the night of the big dance. That attention to detail comes free of charge.

“I had a lot of friends who shop there, and we talk all the time, saying, ‘What are we going do if Greg’s not there?’” Reynolds said. “I refuse to think about it.”

The store carries only a dozen labels, most classic American styles.

“His taste level is impeccable,” said Karen Alberg Grossman, the editor of MR, a menswear industry magazine.

Thomajan credits much of his success to the line of Oxxford suits he carries, a classic American brand that can cost $4,500 when made to measure. The company’s chief executive, Bob Denton, said Thomajan has always been their “go-to guy in Boston” and is one of its top 10 accounts in the country. (Neiman Marcus is also in that group.)

Thomajan said that during the store’s best years, 2000 and 2001, Zareh did $2 million annually in sales.

It is the kind of operation few can emulate today. “The buzzword now that all these gurus are talking about in brick-and-mortar retail is that you have to create the experience” for the customer, Denton said. “But he did that 58 years ago.’’

Which makes the news of his departure all the more devastating for his clients.

“When I walk in there, I see my father,” said Mitchell Jacobs, who began shopping at Zareh in 1960, collecting pocket change to purchase knit ties for his dad’s birthday. When he was a young lawyer, Jacobs said, Thomajan gave him a suit before his first day of work and told him he didn’t have to pay for it until he got his first paycheck.

“This is the kind of guy he is and was and always will be,” Jacobs said. “When you walk in the room, you feel like you sit at the head of the table.”

Thomajan, who has bemoaned the erosion of the dress code for decades, worries that his departure may mean a swath of the city will take it as a sign it’s OK to dress down. “Have you gone down to the Cape on a weekend and ever gone to a restaurant?” he asks, exasperation creeping into his voice. “The men are dressed like cab drivers.”

And he casts a sideways glance at the mention of the made-to-measure menswear startups that promise custom suiting with a few online keystrokes. Ever the gentleman, he sums up his thoughts on the new-age competitors with a quick dismissal: Their suits simply do not fit the way a good suit should. “I have tremendous concerns about my industry, which I love,” he said.

Thomajan said he is now focused on ending his career on his own terms. “I’m choosing to invite my customers in, shake their hand and thank them for everything they’ve done for me, sew on a few last-minute buttons, and go away.”

He admitted it’s hard to imagine retirement when his career never felt like a job. “I’ve never known anything but this shop, and I’m terrified as to what I’m going to do,” he said.

And then there is, of course, the issue of his beloved suits. “I’m never going to wear them again,” he fretted, contorting his face in a grimace. “I’m going to be wearing chinos.”