Store Closing Statement

As of August 1st, our storefront is closed.

At the beginning of July, the property management at our current location notified us that they would be relocating our store to a different building. There was a clause in our lease that allows management to move tenants at their discretion with only 30 days' notice or we must terminate our lease. While it was our mistake to sign a lease with this clause, we never imagined it would be enforced in such a manner.

We were blindsided by this news and given until July 26th to decide whether to move to the new location by August 31st and re-open September 1st, or void our current lease.

As many of you know, we spent seven months in a temporary storefront at this property while patiently waiting for our permanent space. The amount of time and effort that went into developing both storefronts was a true labor of love for our business.

As an explanation for the relocation, we were told by management that we had to move to accommodate the “exponential growth of another current tenant.”

It became clear to us that the only option was to terminate our lease. We cannot justify developing a third storefront in a location where our business is not valued equally to others. We have not had financial issues—our bills and rent are paid on time—but we did not fit the vision management had for their building.

This has been a harsh lesson in commercial real estate laws and an important reminder to perform in-depth research on the companies we sign contracts with.

We want to assure all our customers with pending orders that there is no change to your timeline in receiving your items. Our business remains fully operational, and we continue to sell in other stores and at markets through this transition.

We thank everyone who supported our storefront, especially our vendors and instructors who have been excellent collaborators. We’re looking forward to a long beach vacation before we start our search for our new location.

Sincerely,
Gil & Hilary