The Best Men's Store in America

Curt Benham taking care of a customer over the phone.

It's almost four o'clock on a Monday as our driver (yes, you too can have a driver too via UberX) pulls off Howell Mill Road on the west side of Atlanta. For those familiar, you know we're pulling up to Sid Mashburn. It's been almost three years since we were last in...five since we profiled his then two year-old shop here on The F.E.C. Diaries. While the shop has waxed cooler with the addition of a giraffe procured from a Parisian flea market and a shoe room straight out of the pages of Fitzgerald's Gatsby, whispers had been swirling that the southern hospitality had supposedly begun to wane.

If you don't walk in in the "uniform"—four-in-hand knot askew, natural shoulder jacket, and Chelsea boots (a recent affinity)—we could see it. While this has never been our experience, we could see it. The uniform portrays a certain type of club, the cult of Sid. The thing is, it's a really great club to be a part of...a master class on how to dress like a grown-up. Esquire recently crowned Sid Mashburn the best menswear shop in America, a coronation few would dispute. But what of putting gentlemen at ease? That's where Curt Benham comes in. He's been tasked with essentially making guys feel really welcome. As we're walked through the finer points of their new sack jacket (our bourbon of choice in hand, naturally), it's definitely working.