815 Rewind apparel celebrates McHenry and Crystal Lake’s

Stephanie Czekalski's 815 Rewind, an online apparel brand, brings back the logos – and the memories – of long-gone local spots in McHenry County.

A friend gave Stephanie Czekalski a phone number for Russ Dixon, suggesting the two Pinehurst, North Carolina, residents chat about how their businesses could help each other. What got Czekalski’s attention was Dixon’s 815 area code. “I called him and asked where he was from,” Czekalski said – and was even more shocked when Dixon told her McHenry .

“We looked each other up on Facebook, we have like 100 people in common,” said Czekalski, another McHenry native. Later, the two talked for hours about their shared connections and memories growing up in McHenry County – Czekalski about a decade before Dixon. Those memories included where they would hang out, shop, or gather with friends and family, places like Just For Fun Roller Rink, Some Other Nuts and Don’s Dairy Frost that are long gone.

The two hatched an idea. Could they get permission from the former owners or their families to do licensed throwback apparel? The two reached out to their connections and their new enterprise, 815Rewind.com , has exclusive agreements to do just that.

Brands include McHenry’s Don’s Dairy Frost and Henny Penny, along with the Silver Nugget in Crystal Lake . “We wanted to make sure to do this right and reached out to as many as we can that are still alive” to ensure they had the copyright approval for logos and images, Czekalski said. Out of the nine McHenry and Crystal Lake stores for which they’re making throwback apparel, she has signed agreements with six of them.

For others, if the families are still around, they want to do the same, she said. Longtime friend Kristina “Dolly” Bates at McHenry’s Verdant Sol saw her Czekalski’s Facebook posts about the new endeavor. Bates suggested Czekalski talk to Carol Chrisman at The Trend Cellar.

After the two talked, Chrisman said she was in as an additional, brick-and-mortar outlet for 815 Rewind. “She is doing it the right way, with consent from everybody,” including the family of owners who still have copyright interests, Chrisman said. “She is bringing back that soul, that old soul that we need in our town with the new, too,” Chrisman said.

It isn’t just T-shirts and hoodies they’re making, and some of the

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references are deep cuts. The proprietor at Green Street store Some Other Nuts was often suspicious of youthful customers. “He didn’t trust anyone and accused you of shoplifting,” Czekalski said. In honor of that, one bumper sticker for the store reads, “Where every customer is a suspect,” next to the logo. The Town Club – located inside what is now The Courthouse Tavern on Riverside Drive – advertised “Tables for Ladies.” That’s the logo 815 Rewind went with. “The Tables for Ladies hats are amazing,” Chrisman said, adding that on July 18, during McHenry’s Fiesta Days, Czekalski will have a table on the street. What Czekalski has also gotten is some backlash. She moved to North Carolina with her husband in 2015, and for some, that means she isn’t a local anymore. “Strangers have said I’m not local enough because I live in North Carolina, and they won’t support the business because I...

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