NAPLES, Fla -- A longtime Naples business is going out of business. The tough economy has forced Cutlery World to call it quits.

The specialty knife store in the Coastland Center Mall will shut its doors next month after more than two decades of business.

Cutlery World has been inside the Coastland Center mall for 27 years. The current owners have run the store since 1989. They're the last of the small stores left in the Naples mall and next month, they too will be leaving.

"In my lifetime, it's probably the toughest economy I've ever seen," says owner Larry Pendleton.

Larry is known around Naples as the knife guy. He says, "Any place I got in town, people look at me and perhaps they don't recognize me because I’m not behind the counter, but they say there's the knife guy from the mall."

Over the years his business has attracted customers from all over the world. Corazon Lenuza is from the Philippines. She has been coming to Naples and Cutlery world for 16 years.

Lenuza says, "I used to buy Swiss Knives for the teachers of my daughter. It started when she was in elementary, then high school, now she's graduating from college."

Larry and his wife Rosalie have invested more than two decades into the knife business, but now everything must go. Their lease will officially end January 31st. For the Pendleton's it's the end of an era.

"We go home and we talk about it at night and we get very emotional," Pendleton said. Since word of the store closing spread, hundreds of customers have come in to the sotre to say goodbye, wish the couple well and thank them for all they've done over the last 22 years.

"I was very disappointed. I'm going to miss this store. I always buy things here, 2-3 times a year," says Thomas Hudak of Naples.

The Pendleton's lease ends on January 31, but if they run out of things to sell, they will be out of the mall before that.

As for what's next, the Pendletons tell WINK News they are going to start a mobile sharpening service and are hoping to have a presence at some of the local farmers markets.