Closure of our Williamsburg Brick and Mortar

As some of you may know, our Williamsburg Brooklyn location located at: 147 Grand Street, Brooklyn, New York, 11249 (across the street from Supreme) has closed effective 5/31/2022. 

JLooking back on our 19 months of operation at this location, I wanted to first and foremost thank all of our customers for their support. The relationships fostered during this time were invaluable to me.

The brick and mortar business failed due to the following reasons: expenses were too high (primarily rent), the conversion of prospective walk ins to buying customers was not sufficient enough, and the bottom line was despite all of our efforts to contain expenses and make change operationally to contain costs the business did not generate enough income to cover all expenses.

Furthermore, I personally went through some health issues which rendered me incapable of being involved working on the business which hurt the business tremendously.

Looking back on the journey with the business, I have no regrets. It was a learning experience for me as through the failure I have learned a lot. Some of the key takeaways are as follows: regardless of your projections based on analytics such as: sales, foot traffic, and overall analysis of an area always be sure to be conservative.

What I mean by this is prior to signing any lease for the aforementioned property I believe I did my due diligence however in retrospect, I could have done a better job. I could have leased a space half the size and took more time to identify a space which was a great value and much cheaper monthly which would have given the business a leg up. However, I was sold on the idea of being across the street from major streetwear brand Supreme. I was under the impression that customers from Supreme would come across the street to shop at our store. This was a major mistake because the fact is many customers who went to Supreme did not cross the street to come to our store. As far as sales we did well, much more sales volume than our Staten Island store, but the expenses were overwhelming.

It was so difficult making the business profitable considering the rent was $7000 per month. We had to work our tails off just to profit enough to cover the rent let alone other expenses: employees, insurance, taxes, accounting, miscellaneous expenses, etc.

We are currently still operating the business through our Staten Island store front located at: 2110 Richmond Road, Staten Island, New York, 10306. 

The reason I am writing this blog is for aspiring entrepreneurs. I am being transparent with all of you sharing my successes and failures alike. It’s inherent when starting any prospective business that failure is a possibility.

As of right now, I have no plans on opening another store at the moment as I have to focus on my current operating both businesses (Staten Island location and the Brooklyn business even though we have no store front.)

My long term goal is to identify a mixed use building (commercial unit on ground level and residential units on second and third floors,) and do my due diligence to ensure the deal makes sense from a financial perspective and then purchase the building and operate my store out of the ground level and rent the residential units to cover the rest of the mortgage note and put a couple bucks in my pocket.

While I was going through my health issues, I took a Real Estate course through the Staten Island Board of Realtors (SIBOR) to keep my mind off of what I was going through and stay mentally sharp. I passed the exam despite all the issues I was going through and later passed the state licensure exam. 

For the past 3-4 years I wanted to get into real estate and learn more about the field. What better way to learn about an industry by getting involved in it. Shortly I will be working part-time with a Real Estate Brokerage which my parents referred me to and learn all the ins and outs of real estate and eventually accomplish my personal, professional, and business goals.

In closing I wanted to leave you all with the following words of advice: Despite adversity and challenges you experience in your life do not let that stop you from achieving your goals. Just because you fail that doesn’t mean that life should stop. It’s ok to take a break, step aside for a minute, and analyze what happened before you start your next venture.

Hopefully soon I will start our YouTube channel back up along with perhaps a podcast.

Thank you all for your continued support.

-The Sole Broker