Oriental rug store will close

By Joe Beck -- jbeck@nvdaily.com

FRONT ROYAL -- Downtown is bracing for a blow when another of its mainstay businesses closes Dec. 31.

Tariq H. Khawaja said he is giving up his 2,000-square-foot oriental rug store after 12 years. The three-year economic slump has been too much to overcome, he said Friday.

"We are closing down, and it's sad for us to leave this place but we have no other way," Khawaja said Friday. "The time has come."

Khawaja's buisness at 213 E. Main St. stood out among the antique stores, restaurants and law offices on Main Street for its high-dollar merchandise. Prices for individual rugs ranged from $250 up to $10,000, all of them hand-woven and one-of-a-kind imports from places across the Caspian Sea region such as Turkey, Pakistan and Afghanistan.

His shop is the second major business to close on Main Street in the last several weeks. BB&T bank completed its move from downtown to the Crooked Run Shopping Center, north of Interstate 66, in early November. Several other business have also closed in the last year, and other merchants have spoken of struggling to hang on until the economy improves.
Khawaja said he and his wife, Tehmina, have no plans to leave Front Royal, despite the imminent demise of their business. Rugs left unsold after Dec. 31 will be stored elsewhere, possibly for eventual shipment to a store he owns in Japan. Khawaja said he will continue operating a cleaning business and do rug appraisals.

He described himself as "mesmerized" by Front Royal's scenery when he arrived here from Japan in 1999.

"We've liked the area, we like the people, we like the community, the environment, scenery, the schools for our children," he said.

Other downtown merchants have criticized the town for policies and attitudes that hinder their businesses, but Khawaja said the decline of the real estate market since 2008 was a much bigger drag on his shop. Rugs are one of the items people like to buy for a new home when they move in.

"When housing is getting built, a lot of buisness come to town, everyone gets the benefit of expanding," Khawaja said.

Khawaja, 59, was born in Pakistan and graduated from a prestigious university there before setting out for Japan, where he sold rugs for about 25 years. Some of his customers were American military personnel stationed around Japan. One of them was Bill Powers, a Navy serviceman and native of Front Royal, who now operates a State Farm Insurance office in town.

"My wife likes oriental rugs, and she met Tariq at a bazaar on the base somewhere," Powers said. "She invited him to come to our house and show him our neighborhood.
He took us to dinner in Tokyo, to either a Pakistani or Indian restaurant."

Powers and his wife, Mary, kept in contact with Khawaja when they returned to the United States and encouraged him to consider opening a store in Front Royal, which he did in 1999. Mary joined him as a partner for the first year he was in business.

"I think he's a very likeable guy," Powers said. "I enjoy talking to him, whether it's politics or otherwise, and I think he's a very good rug salesman."