LONGVIEW, Texas — Some East Texans are left wondering what's going on with the sudden closure of Al’s Formal Wear in Longview -- a place many visited for tuxedos and other fancy threads for special occasions.
As of Aug. 10, the store's exterior still looked like business as usual. But on the inside, former store manager Kelly Jenkins was clearing out the area where she spent nine years living her dream.
"I love this job so much and they took it away," Jenkins said. "I might not ever see my prom kids ever again."
Last Saturday, employees received an email called "Project Sunshine," where they were being instructed to not take any more reservations or measurements of customers without taking payment, and to start selling all retail items at 50% off.
The letter also stated that they would provide an update on what's happening by Monday afternoon. By 2 a.m. Monday, employees across the nation received a follow-up email stating they were getting laid off effective immediately.
"We were like maybe it's just a computer glitch?" Jenkins said. "Maybe the company has been hacked and they just need a few days to fix things? I never knew we were going to be out of business."
Jenkins said the Longview location was over 110% in sales for the year. This left her wondering: what would happen to the second largest tuxedo company in the country?
This entire week she’s been trying to get a hold of customers to make sure they can make alternative plans. Jenkins tried offering refunds to customers but the store’s phone line and computer systems were deactivated.
This left customers like Victoria Follingstad, who reserved suits for her vow renewal, with concerns.
"It's frustrating for me and $800 is a lot of money," Follingstad said. "I mean it's incredibly frustrating to have to scramble and come up with (a solution) and stress out about it."
Follingstad spent $800 on three suits for her husband and two children. Since then, she's rented more suits from another store, but she's still concerned about getting her money back from Al's. She and her husband have tried reaching out to their parent company, Dapper & Dashing, but have not been able to get a hold of them about a refund.
For soon-to-be-groom Keyontea Cooper, he’s left scrambling for a new suit ahead of his November wedding.
"You know when you cross something off the list for your big day and you feel like you're just one step closer, and then you find that you're another step back, and you got to kind of start over?" Cooper said. "That's the situation that I'm kind of in right now."
Jenkins said nobody deserves this treatments. She is mainly concerned for all the brides and grooms with reservations.
"What are they going to do?" Jenkins said. "They have no money and these groomsmen have bills to pay. My concern is what is everybody going to do now."
She added the company has yet to pay out their earned paid time off and it's impacting stores across the nation. Several former employees have filed class action lawsuits in Houston.
CBS19 reached out to Dapper & Dashing about the closures. We have not received a response.