Business & Tech

Ardmore's Ritz Camera Staff Moves to Havertown

The Ritz Camera in Ardmore closed at the end of September.

Good news for former Ritz Camera customers: while the camera company has gone out of business and the Ardmore store has closed, some of the store's staff will still be working nearby. 

According to Adam Tarsia, the former manager of the Ardmore Ritz Camera location, he and another staff member will be working at the new Cardinal Camera store in nearby Havertown. The store is slated to open in early October.

Cardinal Camera, a family-owned chain based in Lansdale, Montgomery County, has bought up many of the leases and some of the equipment of former Ritz Camera shops locally. According to Claire Schweitzer, a member of Cardinal Camera management, the chain has bought out the leases and assets of 11 former Ritz locations, doubling the number of Cardinal Camera stores virtually overnight.

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While the Ardmore store was not as lucky, the Camera Shop in Havertown made the cut. Cardinal Camera management has been interviewing staff at various Ritz Camera locations who are interested in a job at one of the new stores.

Tarsia, who managed the Ardmore Ritz Camera store for six years, will be the manager at the Havertown location, he said.

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"There will be a lot of adapting to services that Cardinal Camera didn’t offer but Ritz did, and vice versa," Tarsia said.

But in terms of the major things—prints, photo books, poster-size prints—these will all be offered at the new location, and Cardinal Camera will be using the same machinery for prints as Ritz did, Tarsia said.

Tarsia was unsure as to whether the new location would honor gift cards or warranties issued by Ritz. (As Cardinal Camera is a different company and has not bought Ritz Camera, just the leases, it would not be under any obligation to do so.)

While it's exciting to start again, it's still sad to be leaving the Ardmore location.

"My customers in that store were people I had grown to be good friends with for six years. They brought us food, gave us birthday gifts and wedding gifts. We were a family," he said in an email. "I really want to continue my relationship with every single customer I had in Ardmore."

The new Cardinal Camera store will be located in Manoa Shopping Center, at 1305 West Chester Pike, Havertown.


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