Crown Trophy / Royal Jester Apparel
Crown Trophy of Waldorf was started in 1996 when Brian Keesee was 24 years old, fresh out of the Air Force, and thought opening a franchise would be easy.
After three years of working 70 hours a week and eating frozen entrées (hey, they were cheaper than fast food and I never cared much for ramen noodles) I realized my error in judgment.
One of The Largest Awards Stores In Washington D.C.
Fortunately though, we managed to quickly grow and became one of the largest awards stores in the Metro Washington D.C. area, and one of the largest in the national franchise.
It wasn’t long before we also became the primary source for promotional items for our customers and in 2013, we purchased a state of the art wide format printer/plotter allowing us to produce full color banners and awards graphics in-house.
In 2010 we purchased and moved into our current 5,400 square foot building on business Rt. 5 in Waldorf, giving us the largest showroom in the area. You old timers will remember it as the old Kinney Shoes down from the Pizza Hut (think GASS Shoes).
Journey Into The Custom Apparel Market
After years of inquiries from our long-time loyal customers, we made the decision in 2015 to enter into the custom apparel market; something most of our customers had a need for but were forced to source elsewhere.
That was when Apparel by Crown was born. In order to quickly gain the knowledge and expertise we felt we needed to provide top notch screen printing, embroidery and digitally printed apparel, we negotiated and purchased Somethin’ Special Screen Printing & Embroidery in January 2016.
They had been serving the Southern Maryland area for over 35 years and their staff joined ours, bringing with them a combined 50 years of experience in the custom-decorated apparel industry of shirt printing companies.
New Name, Same Great Service
In 2018 we changed our apparel division name to Royal Jester Apparel. We thought this was a more suitable brand for us since it stands out and hints at our more playful side. The Jester was common in the medieval and Renaissance eras and was someone who grabbed your attention and made you feel good.
That’s what we believe custom imprinted apparel and promotional items are supposed to do in today’s nonstop world filled with constant advertising and “urgent information” (you know, like what our friends had to eat for lunch).
Timeline Of Royal Jester Apparel's Growth
How Can We Help You?
Never purchased from us? Ask around to your friends (or view the testimonials below) and we bet you’ll find someone who has and can tell you all about us. We take a lot of pride in serving our loyal customers for nearly 30 years!
