Diebel’s Sportsmens Gallery has succeeded as a tobacco and gift retailer for 60 years in Kansas City by offering “quality, consistency and service.”

“If I heard it once, I heard it a million times,” said Diebel’s president, Curt Diebel. They were the watchwords of his late father and company founder Fred Diebel.

“I know he’d be proud of how we’ve built it up,” Diebel said. “The first time we did a million dollars as a company, he was particularly proud of that. He started with nothing, with a loan of $1,000 from his father-in-law, so I don’t think he ever saw that opportunity coming.”

The crucial pivot for Diebel’s came in 1984, when its centerpiece location on the Country Club Plaza changed its name from Fred Diebel Tobacconist to Diebel’s Sportsmens Gallery, which led to an immediate uptick in sales and double-digit growth for several years.

With two area locations and a wholesale business to groceries and liquor stores in seven states, Diebel’s continues to engage customers of cigars and men’s gift items, including shaving kits, barware, humidors and writing instruments.

“It’s all about keeping an open mind and trying to find that next great category that will increase our sales,” Diebel said. “It’s constantly, ‘What can we do to enhance our business?’”