Mason's Sport Store in Toronto will declare at the end of the month, ending an innings in the town that started in the 1930s.
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Proprietor Graham Mason said the family-owned store would cease trading on June 30.
Then his retirement will begin.
"I've been here 53 years, and started work here when I was 16," he said.
"I'm 69 now. It's time to live the dream."
The store was founded by Mr Mason's father, Fred Mason.
"Dad was a barber by trade and he opened a barber shop here in 1937," Mr Mason said.
"As a sideline he just added a few fishing rods and some sports gear for sale. He even had a rifle hanging up in the window."
The barber-cum-sports store had been in the building now occupied by the LJ Hooker office.
"Dad was also an SP bookmaker, but when the TAB opened in Toronto he stopped that."
In 1957, Fred Mason retired from hairdressing to concentrate on sports gear.
In 1960, he made the shift to the store's current location.
Mr Mason said the family lived at the back of the block, and built a brick shop to front the street.
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The store was redeveloped and expanded a few times over the years, and took on the SportsPower branding.
Mr Mason suspects the final day of trading will be difficult.
"It will be an emotional day when we close the doors here for the last time," he said.
"We'll miss the regular customers because you build up relationships with them.
"You realise how long we've been here when parents come in with their kids and they tell us that their parents used to bring them in here to shop."
Mr Mason can recall a young Willie Mason (no relation) coming in with his mum to buy football boots. The former rugby league international grew up and played his junior football in Toronto.
Mr Mason said he witnessed several changes to the sporting gear game over the years.
"We used to stock about 100 tennis racquets and 40 squash racquets, with about 10 styles of shoes," he said.
"Now, that's reversed. We have hundreds of styles of shoes and only a few racquets."
Mr Mason said the advent of online shopping and the emergence of large sports retailing chains had impacted the store.
But he said Mason's Sports Store had continued to be a viable business, carrying about $500,000 in stock, all of which was now discounted to clear.
The store had been successful, in part, due its ability to find a market niche and provide services that shoppers couldn't always find elsewhere, he said.
"For instance, we'd stock shot puts, javelins and discuses. We'd carry a lot of niche items that the others don't.
"And we had other things, too. You could come in here and have the handle in a cricket bat replaced, and you could get your tennis racquet re-strung."
Mr Mason said the store currently had four staff - three of whom were family.
"Over the years we've probably had 50 staff working for us here, many of them were teenagers who would come in to work after school," he said.
Fishing gear now accounts for about 35 per cent of the store's trade.
Mr Mason lives on the lake at Bonnells Bay, so fishing looms as a major attraction for him in retirement.
"I'm looking forward to doing some more fishing - and a bit more testing of the fishing gear rather than selling it," he said.
Mr Mason said a medical imaging business would replace the sports store.
