Over the past few months, the Fort Huachuca Army & Air Force Exchange Service, or AAFES, staff has been busy around the fort, making small changes to suit the wants and needs of military consumers.
In an interview with the Scout, Jeff Hyatt, Fort Huachuca AAFES general manager, shared the latest updates.
Theater to reopen
The Cochise Theater, which closed its doors in 2012 due to financial issues, will reopen within the next few weeks. It is located next to Desert Lanes bowling alley and the Exchange.
Two free advance screenings are scheduled next month at the theater. On May 10, the theater will be showing "Godzilla," starring Aaron Taylor-Johnson and Elizabeth Olsen. May 17, the movie "Blended," starring Adam Sandler and Drew Barrymore, will be playing.
Tickets will be available at the customer service counter inside the Exchange. Movie times can be found at www.shopmyexchange.com.
Chinese food eatery closes today
In the Exchange food court, Manchu Wok is closing today. It will be replaced with L&A Southern Style Bar-B-Q, currently located inside the Armed Forces Bank, in the next few months.
"Manchu Wok has been a loss operation since we opened it," Hyatt explained. "That facility has lost over a $500,000 since it opened three years ago."
Dry cleaners gets drop box
As a convenience for the Fort Huachuca community, a drop-box for dry cleaning has been placed inside the Prosser Village Express. Simply fill out a ticket, circle the date clothes are needed, keep the pink copy, place items in a bag provided on the side of the box and drop the bag inside. Items are to be picked up at Military Clothing/Dry Cleaning in Prosser Village.
PX makes internal changes
Changes are being made inside the Exchange as well. Hyatt explained that AAFES is currently conducting an analysis of the different product categories to determine which are the strongest, what should be expanded and what should be minimized to ensure that inventory is set properly based off of the current sales trends.
Beginning last August, AAFES began transitioning the misses department to all name-brand lines of clothing and introduced the Michael Kors line. Eventually, the young men's department will become all name-brand lines as well.
Hyatt explained that the reasoning behind this change is because the age groups that shop in those categories primarily desire name-brand clothing. "They don't care about price too much," he said. "All they want is notoriety."
"One of the top priorities for the [Fort Huachuca] Exchange overall is to intensify name brands inside the main store," he added.
Some electronics prices to drop
As the summer months roll in and people spend less time indoors, Hyatt recommends keeping an eye on television prices in the Exchange's electronics department, as customers will see significant price drops.
"An example is a 70-inch Sharp TV that first started out at $2,399 -- sometime this summer the price will drop to $1,699," Hyatt said, letting the community in on upcoming savings. "Prices are going to be much, much better on TVs this year, especially the larger ones."
E-receipt option available
Earlier this year, AAFES introduced the e-receipt option. Customers can now choose to have their receipt printed immediately, e-mailed to them or neither.
"The great thing about that is that if you purchase something that may need to be returned later, you always have a copy if you have it emailed to yourself," Hyatt said.
The furniture store will be introducing a new Ashley showcase program with more furniture displays and less back stock. Furniture purchases will now be shipped directly to the customer. This will allow AAFES to offer a larger variety of options.
For questions about your local AAFES, call 458.7210.
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