With the exception of a few eateries on Knox Street, most retail businesses were dark a quarter to eight in the morning on Nov. 25.
There was one exception, though.
The Knox-Henderson Apple Store chose Black Friday to reopen in their newly remodeled space, after months in a temporary space around the corner on McKinney Avenue.
Red-shirted Apple Store employees clapped and cheered as close to 100 customers streamed into the newly redone store.
Almost all had waited less than a few hours, but one customer had been in line much longer than that.
Justin “iJustin” Wagoner got to the store around 8 p.m. Tuesday.
He started waiting in front of the temporary store on McKinney and then moved to the front of the new store after taking a short break Thanksgiving afternoon.
He said the second person in line finally joined him about 4:30 a.m. Friday morning.
Wagoner planned to purchase a gift for a friend’s upcoming birthday.
Curtis Wilson is not just an admitted Apple fanboy. He’s also an Apple employee at the Stonebriar location.
“The Knox Street store has always been my favorite store,” he said.
Wilson added that he was at the old Knox-Henderson store when it closed and at the temporary store on McKinney when it opened.
Even though he was scheduled to work at the Stonebriar Apple Store at 11 a.m. on Friday, Wilson said he took the time to come to the re-opening.
“I love this store,” he said.
Wilson was considering purchasing an iPad smart cover to add to his collection.
Blake Cecil, president of the Mustang Club and a 1993 graduate of Southern Methodist University, was not in line to purchase anything.
Instead he was there to have his data transferred from his old PC to his new Macintosh desktop.
“I got an iPhone, and we got iTunes,” Cecil said. “With all the compatibility, I thought it was a good move.”
He also mentioned reliability issues with various PCs over the years and decided to change operating systems because of recommendations from friends. “Everybody swears by it,” Cecil said, speaking in regards to Mac’s reliability.
To celebrate the store’s re-opening, Apple planned to give the first 1,000 customers commemorative T-shirts.
There were still about 900 left at 8:15 a.m., sixty hours after Jason Wagoner first got in line.