Just a few days after Valentine's Day of this year, a four-alarm fire broke out on the corner of 3rd and Chestnut, engulfing multiple buildings in flame and displacing residents and incapacitating the businesses operating out of them. Being in Old City doesn't just mean colonial charm but also actually old buildings with hazardous construction issues – in this case, so many buildings caught fire because they all shared a common wall with inadequate fire protections between them – and during the blaze firefighters had to forcibly enter 41 South 3rd Street in order to extinguish the neighboring flames.
So... We didn't catch fire. But our ceiling collapsed from the firefighters' water, half our stock was totally trashed, and all of our paper products were rendered unsellable due to moisture exposure (and we had just transferred our entire online orders & inventory operations to the basement). For fear of structural collapse in adjacent buildings, we weren't allowed in to the building for days, then weeks. Then the entire building needed to be dried out and rehabbed.
Weeks turned into months. At our original Rittenhouse location, nearly a third the size of the Old City shop, we hustled to receive and house winter and spring shipments meant for two stores. Neighbors, fellow small businesses, and loyal customers went out of their way to shout us out and spend their hard-earned money with us, and for that we eternally grateful...
AND VERY STOKED TO LET YOU KNOW THAT OUR SECOND LOCATION IS BACK IN BUSINESS!
We opened our doors on July 6th, 2018 and had a freaking amaaazing re-opening weekend. The store is slightly rearranged, with a few tweaks to fixtures (like resurrecting the Rittenhouse shop's 2006-era grid wall), and same wonderful product selection. Take a look!
Hope to see you soon. =)
Anonymous
So exciting! I am usually in old city way more than I am in Rittenhouse, so this location makes it easy to make an excuse to stop in for a new journal.
So happy for y’all!