John Thomas Jewelers

It was one o'clock in the morning when John Mead agreed to cover a jewelry store shift he knew nothing about. He was bartending at a buddy’s bar when the DJ - who worked at a jewelry store during the day - and the store manager talked him into helping them out the next morning. Running on almost no sleep that morning, he told himself it was a stupid idea - but guilt got him out of bed anyway.

"Throughout the day I was just like, you know, this is really enjoyable," he says. "People coming in happy, couples. I'm not getting that at night bartending." Before you know it, John was working at the store full-time.

After a move to Vegas and a stint at a retail jewelry chain where he became the number two salesman in the country "because it just came so naturally", John partnered with another jewelry store owner, moving to Albuquerque in 2003 and eventually opened John Thomas Jewelers in 2013. His wife and business partner, Janelle, met him by pure coincidence, in a stone setting class years earlier. She'd bought her first jewelry store at 24, and came on board to help grow the business with John in 2017. Fast forward to today: John Thomas has become the fastest growing jeweler in New Mexico for three years running.

What really sets the store apart is the fact that everything happens under one roof. Design, wax modeling, casting, setting, engraving: no outsourcing, no shipping a piece off to a shop that never has to answer for it.

"You can go to twenty stores in town. I don't know anybody left in Albuquerque that does it from A to Z in house," John says. "When it's all done in house, the person you're talking to is going to be the jeweler making it." John Thomas can build your ring in front of you on a screen and you can try on a wax 3D-printed version in about 45 minutes. The final piece is ready in about two to three weeks.

That capability is how a customer ended up with a gold panda bear straddling his engagement ring's center diamond, hugging it, exactly as he'd pictured. Five other jewelers had already turned him down. When he came to John Thomas to ask if they could make it, "He wasn't even done with the sentence," John says. "I said, sure, of course."

People are often shocked to realize the price to have something custom-made just how they want it is no different than picking a pre-made piece off the shelf. Try that at a big box retailer and all bets are off!

An Ocean Away for the Right Stone

John Thomas Jewelers sources diamonds directly from Antwerp, Belgium, a detail that surprises most customers who assume New York's Diamond District is the center of the trade.

"A lot of people don't realize that Antwerp, Belgium, is the diamond capital of the world. They've been trading diamonds there since the 1400s. Eighty five percent of the world's loose diamonds flow through Antwerp at some point."

John and Janelle were first invited to Antwerp in 2019, while searching for a two carat heart shaped diamond with tight parameters on color, clarity, carat weight, and size. A domestic search across the entire country turned up only nine stones that fit. Sitting down with a single dealer in Antwerp, they found eleven, from that one tray alone.

"While I was there in Antwerp, I looked at two hundred. What diamond are you going to get when you're looking at two hundred? You're going to get the best of the best."

They now travel to Antwerp twice a year. Once a year, they bring Antwerp to Albuquerque instead, flying in their two primary cutters with their full inventory so local customers can shop the same selection John and Janelle see overseas. They're the only two jewelers in New Mexico who make the trip themselves.

Left: John Thomas Mead, owner of John Thomas Jewelers. Right: CAD-designer Matthew Valentine

No Regrets, Guaranteed

Ask John what the biggest fear is for a man buying an engagement ring, and he doesn't hesitate. It's not knowing whether she'll like what he picked.

"’How do I know she's gonna like the ring I choose?’ You can't choose wrong. We'll guide you, and if for any reason the ring doesn't suit her lifestyle, whatever it is, we'll take care of it. It's not going to cost you anything to remake it."

That's the No Regrets Ring Guarantee: if she doesn't love the ring, for any reason, John Thomas remakes it for free within a year. It's paired with a lifetime nationwide warranty on every purchase, covering maintenance and repairs anywhere in the country, no add on fees.

That's a huge contrast to the experience John says drives most people through the door in the first place: the high pressure, commission driven sales floor at a big chain, the kind of shopping trip that leaves people wary before they've even walked into the next store.

"I want someone to walk out of here and feel like, I need to give these guys a Google review," John says. "The word custom and the word experience are the two most common words in our Google reviews. That means they either had something custom made, or they had a really good experience. We've done our job."

John Thomas Jewelers now operates out of a new 4,000 square foot space on Montgomery Boulevard. As opposed to building the new space to get bigger, John says "We built it to get better." The beautiful showroom is centered around the customer and their experience, with the custom shop - literally "a lab behind glass" - so customers can watch their rings come to life. Matthew, the store's in-house custom designer, has taken on a growing ownership stake and will one day run the business himself. John still jokes about retiring, but for now, he measures success the way he always has: not in square footage, but in whether someone walks out wanting to tell the story.