The Mitchell family is now wearing a new hat -- that of a white knight. Late Monday night, the Mitchells, operators of the largest family-owned specialty store in the U.S. with sales of $100 million, inked an 11th-hour deal to acquire the assets of Wilkes Bashford, which simultaneously filed a voluntary Chapter 11 petition. The deal by Ed Mitchell West LLC is for $4.6 million in cash and is subject to higher offers and bankruptcy court approval. A contingency of the sale is that the purchase be completed by Nov. 30 in order to maximize business during the holiday selling period, according to Bob Mitchell, co-president of Mitchells.

The San Francisco-based Wilkes, a men's wear institution that opened its doors in 1966, operates a seven-story flagship on Union Square as well as a store in the Stanford Shopping Center in Palo Alto, Calif. At the end of last month, the struggling Wilkes closed its store in Carmel, Calif., and, the month before that, a Mill Valley, Calif., unit also was shuttered.

If its offer is successful, the Mitchell family, which owns Mitchells in Westport, Conn.; Richards in Greenwich, Conn., and Marshs in Huntington, N.Y., would gain a beachhead on the West Coast and immediately make it a formidable force within the luxury men's wear community in San Francisco and the surrounding area.

"Regrettably, our Carmel store is a victim of the downturn in the economy," said Wilkes Bashford, founder and chairman of his namesake company. "While we are saddened by the closure of the Carmel store, it provides the opportunity to redirect our energies and resources to our downtown San Francisco flagship and Palo Alto stores."

The Monterey Peninsula depends heavily on tourism to support many of its businesses, which have suffered in the recession.