Young’s Menswear is now owned by Tyler and Brooke Myrick. It’s been a 35-year journey for the business to become what it is today.

In 1991, Jena Young started For Men, which began as a retail store in Lincoln Fair Plaza. Soon after, her son, Ron Young Jr., joined as a business partner and co-owner. A couple years later, the store moved into the Delta Plaza Mall.

With competition from other retailers in the area, like J.C. Penney and Whiffle Tree, For Men wasn’t able to enjoy great success simply selling menswear. In 1995, they began offering rentals, which took off.

At that time, For Men rented suits and tuxedos from a company called DuBois Formalwear down in Green Bay and sub-rented them to customers in the Upper Peninsula.

Dressy button-up short-sleeved shirts and a shelf of sweaters are seen for sale at Youngs Menswear in Escanaba. The local business also has a location in Marquette. (R. R. Branstrom | Daily Press)

There was a spell in the mid-’90s when Jena and Ron provided menswear both for sale and for rent, but “the rentals were doing really well, and there was a big need for it – even though there was rentals at the other shops,” Ron said.

Realizing this, the Escanaba family business began growing their own inventory so that they could provide rentals directly to local customers from their own stock, rather than rent from Green Bay.

“As we did a wedding and as we did a prom, we just started building and building ourselves,” Ron explained.

That was around the same time the business found its third home and changed its name. In 1996, For Men became Young’s Formal Wear and relocated to a building at the western end of Ludington Street that housed Stardust Lounge and later Mo’s Pub.

Right around the year 2000, Young’s Formal Wear moved into its longtime home at 1119 Ludington St.

Youngs Menswear is seen illuminated at 1016 Ludington St. the night before its grand opening. The store moved into the former home of Mr. Bike and Ski in February. (R. R. Branstrom | Daily Press)

For a long time, Young’s was known as the area’s tuxedo expert. A past slogan – “Tuxedos are what we do!” – is likely still in the heads of some locals.

But when the department stores and other apparel retailers left Escanaba, Young’s stepped up. They brought in more items available for purchase.

A transformation began to take place when Tyler Myrick, a young man who had graduated from Escanaba and then lived in California and Wisconsin, returned to the area with his family – Brooke (nee Mortl) and a daughter in 2021.

Tyler’s video production business, Portage Point Productions, provided some good opportunities, but he found that spending hours editing and doing online marketing left him “burnt out” and missing customer interaction. So he sought a new path.

“I just love the wedding industry. I’ve been doing wedding films for nine years now, and I just have a lot of fun doing that and working with people. …The wedding day is just my passion,” Tyler said. He had heard that Jena and Ron were looking to sell their business, so he got in touch, then began shadowing them and working at Young’s Formal Wear with the intent of eventually taking it over.

A large, clean space beneath one of the newest buildings on Ludington Street helps Young's Menswear store a much greater inventory than at their previous location. (R. R. Branstrom | Daily Press)

He worked at Young’s at 1119 Ludington occasionally in 2022, full-time throughout 2023, and completed the business sale in mid-2024.

The deal with Jena and Ron placed the operation in Tyler’s hands on July 1. They retain a positive relationship.

Tyler officially formed TBIM Management LLC with the State of Michigan to transact business under the name Youngs Menswear – a name that went into effect to the public in January 2025. The new year introduced the fresh name and logo.

Keen to grow the business, Tyler was making plans in early 2025.

“I saw the opportunity to really expand the retail space, as well as I had plans to open a second location somewhere in the U.P,” Tyler explained. He brought in more retail items and did research into where a second location might do well, settling on Marquette.

Though it had been part of a three-to-five year plan, it came together surprisingly quickly. Before Tyler had gone public with his plans to expand, a young man named Samuel Compton reached out from Indiana. Compton, originally from Gwinn, had managed a Men’s Wearhouse but was preparing to move back to the U.P. He noted that Youngs Menswear was the only one of its kind in the U.P., so Compton had reached out to Tyler to introduce himself.

“I was already doing my research for Marquette, and the wheels started turning,” Tyler said. A couple video calls later, he asked Compton to manage a satellite location.

By July 2025, the second Youngs Menswear opened at 2112 U.S. 41 Suite #2 in Marquette.

Both locations offer sales and rentals, fittings and alterations – but it’s taking Escanaba locals time to realize that they don’t have to travel to find the products and services offered at Youngs.

“It’s frustrating as a business owner that we’re the afterthought instead of the forethought,” Tyler admitted, remarking that many people still recall the business’s reputation as a place for tuxedo rentals. Some people have discovered recently — and only after failed trips to Green Bay — that Youngs performs tailoring and has a selection of suits, pants, jackets, shirts, shoes, ties, suspenders and dress socks.

The knowledgeable staff armed with tape measures help customers find selections that usually match better and fit better than what a customer is able to find at a department store.

Quality, personal customer service is important – a value Tyler regards highly, he said. He aims to work to find people what they’re looking for, whether it’s a rental of a wildly-patterned jacket or custom-tailoring of a purchased pair of trousers, regardless of what his profit margins will be.

As the flagship location and warehouse, the expanding Youngs Menswear in Escanaba needed to move on from the space it had occupied for 25 years. Fortunately for them, a large, new building became available when Mr. Bike and Ski moved out of 1016 Ludington St. The sale of the new building was completed on Nov. 3, 2025.

Only a little bit of remodeling – primarily, the addition of dressing rooms – was required. Youngs is now able to sprawl out in an area that’s about three times the size of the old location at 1119.

The front floorspace of the store itself is one thing, but additional room for storage means that Youngs is able to carry plenty of inventory in a variety of sizes and colors. The clothing isn’t just super-formal anymore, either; sweaters, button-up t-shirts, and clothes appropriate for everyday business settings line the sale racks, too.

Of course, rentals still make up a good chunk of business. And since the local business owns its products and houses them on-site, people are able to come in last-minute for rentals.

When special items need to be ordered – like a range of suits of a certain color for a bridal party – that tends to be done ahead of time, but sometimes people come in and find suits just a week before prom or on the day of a funeral.

Tyler plans to eventually bring in a drycleaning operation so that Youngs won’t need to rely on an outside source to launder rented items.

The new Escanaba location of Youngs Menswear opened quietly in February and welcomed shoppers and guests with a grand opening last week. One-day-only sales, food and drink, a prize drawing and ribbon-cutting were held at 1016 Ludington on Friday.

Both locations of Youngs Menswear are open from 10 a.m. to 6 p.m. on Mondays and Thursdays; from 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. on Tuesdays, Wednesdays, and Fridays; and from 10 a.m. to 2 p.m. on Saturdays. Appointments can also be made outside of those hours.