On the night of September 11th, 2020, we got a message from a friend that said, “Is this your store?” We looked at the address and realized that the building next to ours was on fire. We were already near our building because we were on a late-night ice cream run. At this point, we were not worried. As we drove down our street, we saw the flashing lights. I was on the phone with my mom, and I remember saying, “Oh crap, they are at our shop!” As we approached the building, we could see Fire Fighters fighting the blaze next door. Still, at this point, we were not worried. Our building looked fine. We unlocked the doors to go inside the building, and as the doors opened, the smoke billowed out. At that moment, I knew everything was gone. The smell was like no other smell I could describe. It was a pungent smell of fire, smoke, and melting plastic. Plastic on our fixtures turned a dark yellow within minutes.
In my mind, at that time, all I was worried about was my customers. We had over two hundred orders that needed to be picked up the next day, and I did not want their items to get ruined. So we loaded two orders into our tiny Prius C. A friend came and picked up our kids and the orders. Then the real craziness began.
In a not so orderly fashion, we started to unload the shop. At this point, we did not know that the damage had already been done. There was no saving the items from the smoke that penetrated through the plastic.
Fast forward to now, and the clean up is slow. We were able to rent the most fantastic warehouse for the time being and are having fun selling via our Facebook and Instagram Pages. It will be a little while before our site is back up, because we lost over five thousand styles and months of work.
Until the recovery is complete, I invite you to shop with us via our Facebook and Instagram Page!
XO, Neeka
