SAN ANTONIO, Texas -- Felipe T. Gomez loves to dress luxuriously. The 79-year-old’s style can be found on the walls of Penners, a 103-year old men’s boutique store in the heart of downtown.

“After high school I went into the service, then I had money then -  so around '64, '65 I start coming to Penners,” Gomez says.

The first thing he purchased was a $69 top coat that he still wears.

Gomez grew up on the West Side near the Cassiano Courts and was a part of notorious gang called Ghost Town.

Penners was founded in 1916 by Jewish immigrant Morris Penner. The family-owned business survived a fire in the late '70s and has even outlasted 100 years worth of downtown development.

Co-owner Mitchell Penner credits the store's Chicano customers for making Penners a household name.

“What put Penners on the map was the West Side San Antonio: the khaki Dickie pants, the tangerine Stacey Adams,” Penner says. “It’s something that people know us for, and come in for, in addition to our fedoras. But now we’ve added more sports shirts, retro shirts to compliment it, and then of course our authentic Guyabera.”

A customer tries on a hat at Penners in San Antonio, Texas, in this image from January 2020. (Jose Arredondo/Spectrum News)

Juan Charo and his daughter walked into Penners searching for cachucha hat. The 50-year-old remembers coming to Penners with his grandfather, who often wore his cachucha. Charo wears the signature hat as way of paying homage to his late grandfather.

“The early '70s, mid '70s, we used to come in here and I swear it would be the only place he would buy clothes,” Charo says. “Fitted, that’s the type of man he was.”

Co-owner Max Penner enjoys assisting four generations of customers and learning about San Antonio’s history through them.

“Oh man, the backgrounds of these people are fascinating,” Max Penner says. “To hear their stories on a daily basis - if these walls could speak it would tell us unbelievable stories.”

Charo says he comes back to Penners because the store has welcomed Mexican Americans for decades.

“They’ve been in here for so long, for the Mexicanos, dressing up the Mexicanos the way we are accustomed to dressing, not anybody else,” Charo says.