In Downtown Wenatchee, a hidden gem of a store turns tragedy into triumph

WENATCHEE - Liliana’s Fashion Boutique on South Wenatchee Avenue doesn’t just sell dresses, as the name might imply, as you drive by. What owner Joaquin Granados sells is hope. What form it comes in is up to the buyer.

The recognizable storefront at 6 South Wenatchee Avenue is at the heart of downtown, and stands as a juxtaposition with the stores around it, despite selling much the same kind of merchandise and services. Two doors north is Collins Fashion, where stylish women can get a new dress, coat, shoes, or even leisure and workwear. Two doors south is the old Mills Brothers building, housing Woody’s Classic Man, which has the same kind of selection for men, including suits inside at Jim Dandy’s Haberdashery, an impressive array of clothes, colognes, hats, shoes and even a barber shop.

Liliana’s Boutique has all of the same things, but for a different crowd: The large Hispanic and Latino population of Wenatchee. Sure, anyone can buy anything they like, but the style of clothes that Liliana’s sells caters to a very specific demographic. That’s not stereotypical by any means. It’s just that culturally, the things that are important to that crowd are different, and those needs are Liliana’s target market.

Teen girls come in with their mothers to buy a dress for their quinceañera. Parents get outfits for their kids’ First Communions. A bride-to-be can look through their extensive catalog of wedding dresses, each in the traditional style that they grew up with. An immigrant from Michoacán or Sonora can come in and buy a sombrero de vaquero and a pair of matching boots just like the ones their father wore.

But being a one-stop fashion cultural center for 35% of the population of Wenatchee wasn’t always where Liliana’s was headed. Liliana Granados herself started out with a beauty salon. Her husband, Joaquin, was a truck driver when she started pursuing her dream, and they moved from location to location, expanding each time. At one point, Liliana’s business savvy led her to become an owner of Taco Loco further down the Avenue in addition to the hair salon and boutique.

When the combined efforts of driving a truck delivering roofing supplies and coming home to run the restaurant became too much for Joaquin, she asked him to come work with her full time at Liliana’s. And that, he says, turned out to be what he calls a “gift from God.”

Joaquin will show you a video on his phone of his beautiful wife dancing on her birthday, August 16, back in 2023, in a fancy yellow dress covered in sunflowers that she designed herself. He will tell you that no one could tell that night at the party at their home that she was sick. He will tell you that he refused to accept the stage four pancreatic cancer diagnosis she got in December when he took her to Confluence after increasing bouts of tiredness, headaches, and just a sense of something being “off.”

He will tell you that before she passed on April 13, 2024, he took her to three of the most highly-respected clinics in Mexico, who all told him that the best thing he could do for her was to love her until the end. And he will say that the “gift from God” is that because he left trucking and sold the restaurant, he got to spend all of that time with her.

During the interview for this story, Joaquin excuses himself to help a longtime customer and friend from Omak who hadn’t been in the store since 2022. She is devastated to find out that Liliana is gone, and cries with her daughters, who both got their quinceañera dresses here.

But the important part is that, in Spanish, Joaquin reassures the woman that the next time she’s in town, he will still be here, and he bids her come visit again. Because he’s not just keeping the business alive in Liliana’s name. He’s expanding again.

After Liliana passed, Joaquin could hardly stand to be reminded of the loss. He had donated all of her salon equipment to the hair academy just down the road.

Now, surrounding the back of the store is work in progress on a renovation project, turning racks into shelves, turning boxes into aisles, turning the storage area into a shopping area, and eventually reopening the hair salon. Two stylists’ chairs in the back of the store, just the way it used to be, in the days when Joaquin remembers that women would come to get their hair done and walk out with a dress or blouse.

“When we had that salon with her, all kinds of people, they come over here to get the haircuts, and then they buy something,” he said.

Upstairs, where Joaquin stores the shipments of dresses, he has a small photo studio where he takes pictures of the new styles and uploads them to social media. And just a little further into the room, hanging in the center, is a bright yellow dress with sunflowers.

“I didn’t like to look at all the other memories at first. But the only way I get rid of that dress is if I have an auction,” he says, “and I donate the money to cancer research.”

Back downstairs, Joaquin shows off the rest of the store. “This older lady, she came in, she’s gonna have a party with all of her abuelita friends, so she bought six of these tiaras yesterday,” he says. And looking down the aisles of the fanciest clothes you’ve ever seen, smelling the sawdust and paint of renewal, it starts to feel like all Joaquin sells now is hope.

Andrew Simpson: 509-433-7626 or andrew@ward.media