In 1989, Rich opened Custom Covers & Canvas at 3145 Military Road, sewing awnings, boat covers, and tarps for Niagara Falls. Almost from the start, a rack of Carhartt went up next to the cutting table, because the people coming in for canvas were the same people who needed coats that could take a winter outside. The pink awning out front said "Custom Covers & Canvas — Carhartt Outdoor Gear," and the pickup in the lot carried a hand-lettered sign: Carhartt Work Clothes, Outlet Prices.

The rack became a room, and the room became a store. Rich's son Bryce took over in 2016, and in 2018 the workwear side got its own name: Great Lakes Work Wear. Thirty-plus years later, Bryce runs it from the same corner of Military Road where his father started it, with the canvas shop and the embroidery machines a few steps from the boot wall.

1990s, roughly. The building gets bigger. The kid in the Carhartt jacket runs the place now.

Walk past the boot wall and you’ll hear the embroidery machines. We decorate what we sell, in-house, which means your crew’s jackets are stitched by the same people who sold them to you — and when a new hire needs one next month, it matches. Fire departments, EMS, police, contractors, landscapers, and the softball team that wanted hoodies by Friday.