By Brad Ziegler
After 50 years, and the sales of hundreds of thousands of units of pre-recorded music, 7th Heaven is closing its doors at 7621 Troost as owner Jan Fichman looks forward to focusing more of his time on family and friends. “I look forward to spending the rest of my life with the people I love,” Fichman explained. “It’s been a lifetime of hard work, fun and heavy drama. I just want to be around positive people that appreciate the unique qualities that we all possess.”
Fichman was raised in south Kansas City in an entrepreneurial environment, as his father sold used cars, and after getting his start working at the Pinkie’s Ben Franklin stores at Red Bridge and Ranch Mart shopping centers, he began working on his own, selling bootleg 8-track tapes on the midway of the state fair. He found out that he enjoyed making money more than studying and quit college not once, but twice, admitting that he only went back to college the second time to meet girls.
After dropping out of college, Fichman expanded his market to liquor stores, gas stations, and truck stops up and down I-70 from Kansas City to St. Louis. When copyright laws changed and were expanded to cover pre-recorded music, he partnered with his parents to open his first 7th Heaven store at 7653 Troost and sold not only legitimate 8-tracks and albums, which had lower margins, but also used jeans, turquoise jewelry and other merchandise that music lovers might be interested in.
Fichman partnered with a newly popular local radio station, KY-102, and promoted local musicians, upcoming concerts and the rock and roll lifestyle that was growing in popularity. Acts like the Doobie Brothers, Frank Zappa, Blue Oyster Cult and Queen were playing at historic Memorial Hall in Kansas City, Kansas and the newly built Royals Stadium hosted larger concerts featuring bands like Crosby Stills Nash and Young, Santana and Chicago. 7th Heaven was a popular ticket outlet for those shows and its parking lot frequently hosted pop up performances by newer national acts such as George Clinton, Megadeath and Limp Bizkit.
As rap and hip hop gained in popularity, the store gave acts such as Snoop Dog, Master P and Tech N9ne the opportunity to promote their music in person and their appearances gave the store greater street credibility in the community.
7th Heaven continued to augment its product mix and its bottom line with smoking products and lifestyle accessories and grew to seven stores over time throughout the metropolitan area. The current location that is set to close in the next 30-60 days is the only store that is left, but it still has thousands of albums in inventory and lots of the smoking and lifestyle accessories which once drew the ire of federal authorities but can now be found at any number of dispensaries, big box retailers and other mainstream retail locations in the area.
As word of the store’s upcoming closing has started to get out, customers of all ages have been flooding back to 7th Heaven, some wanting to take advantage of going out of business specials on remaining products, others trying to talk Fichman out of his decision, wanting to maintain their connection to the beloved record store and the years of memories that it holds for them.
Fichman also treasures the memories and the connections. “Over the last 50 years, 7th Heaven has allowed me to broaden my horizons. It has helped me appreciate the differences in society. That diversity adds flavor to our lives, just like spices add depth and flavor to the food we eat. I will truly miss all the people that have shopped at our store, those that have worked at out store, and all of the local artists that have been making music.”