Checking in with...Anna’s Linens:

Alan Gladstone, of Newport Beach, started Anna’s Linens 21 years ago. He began with one store in Baldwin Park, but had a dream of opening 100.

Today Gladstone is the chairman, president and chief executive of 260 Anna’s Linens stores throughout the nation.

The chain has its headquarters in Costa Mesa, and his plan is to open 1,000 stores. Gladstone named the store after his mother.

Why did you open this store, and how did you come up with the idea to give it your mother’s name?

I knew the country had a need for stores like Anna’s Linens. There was nobody catering to our demographics and specialty environment for their home, and I didn’t know what to name the company and my wife, Shawn, suggested we name it after my mother.

What was your mom like?

She was a terrific lady. She gave me my standards of how to treat people and she was nice all the time and she genuinely cared about the well being of people, and your race, religion, bank book didn’t matter.

She just thought you should treat people very nicely, and our stores loved it when she would come and visit them.

I could always tell where she was that day because the store’s sales went up.

How did she react when you told her you’ll be naming your store after her?

She said: “No, no, no, I’ll be too embarrassed, can’t you name it a different name?” And then after an hour she was so proud, and I promised her that I would have the highest standards.

When you said you knew there’s a need for a store like yours, what did you mean by that?

We wanted to have fashionable quality merchandise at a price normal people can afford. There was a lot of stores catering to rich people, but not any that catered to a more moderate price for individuals or family in a specialty format. I just thought that the rich people had plenty of choices, but the moderate budget people have very few and I wanted to do it better than what was available.

You promised your mom to have the highest standards. How do you do that?

In a variety of ways. We treat people with dignity and respect and that is a must. We want our stores to be aesthetically pleasing. Every towel is folded the exact same way. Every curtain is ironed and we put real loving touches on our display in our stores. Customer service, which is a lost art, at Anna’s you can get good customer service. We have knowledgeable associates that are part of this Anna’s culture that treat our customers superbly.

You said that you encouraged your daughter and son, who are part of this company now, to work for non-family businesses first, why is that?

I thought it was very important that they see what goes on in a non-family business so they would understand the chain of command, bureaucracy, the challenge of getting things done and having a supervisor that has their own agenda, perhaps.

How did you get from one store to 100 to 260 and how will you get to 1,000?

It’s not “I,” it’s “we.” We have great management and 3,000 associates that are committed to making Anna’s a successful company. We have recruited people from other big retails to help us on this journey as well as promoting from within. So, we have a great culture and it’s been fueled by the organic growth and we supplement that with talent from outside of our company. And I think you must lead by respect, not by fear.