Location, location, location the old saying goes.
But the owners of Fed by Threads know parking, parking, parking is just as important.
The downtown shop at 345 E. Congress St. is shutting its doors Saturday, Dec. 17, after a bad combination of sluggish sales, busy personal lives and a really tricky parking situation, said partner Manish Shah.
“For right now, we just have to take a pause for the cause,” said Shah, who added that merchandise is discounted 40-70 percent in the store’s final days. “A lot of people are very upset.”
Indeed. On the store’s Facebook page, customers reacted to the news with sad-face emojis and some comments that the store — which focuses on American-made, sweatshop-free, sustainable fashion — was the only place they shopped.
Shah said for now the trio of partners — which includes Alok Appadurai and Skya Nelson — will focus on the custom printing side of the business, which has always been Fed by Thread’s big emphasis.
“Everybody’s getting paid off,” Shah said. “We’re walking away with our heads just above water.”
Fed by Threads began inside a dance studio on East Ninth Street four years ago with the goal of donating part of its profits to the Community Food Bank of Southern Arizona and a national hunger relief organization. The business grew quickly and moved to Congress Street into an inviting space flooded with natural light inside the mixed-use Plaza Centro, which boasts a garage. The problem was there’s only one way into the parking structure, and customers routinely overshot the entrance and then couldn’t figure out how to get to the shop.
“We had to resort to telling customers to park in the Maynards lot during the day, then we’d be going ourselves, getting them and bringing them to the store,” Shah said. “We were doing that every day, two and three and four times a day. … Customers just love it here, but we’ve made it a total pain in the butt to get here.”
This summer, Fed by Threads was one of three apparel businesses to win the People & Planet Award from Green America, a nonprofit that promotes ethical consumerism. In September, a story in the Star shared Fed by Thread’s plans to expand into other markets. Shah said while other cities have expressed interest in their style of boutique, that’s on hold.
The store will be open noon to 7 p.m. in its final days to clear out inventory. The partners will then reassess, and — a glimmer of hope for Fed by Thread fans — maybe even open again somewhere in town.
“It was very discouraging to make the decision to close the store but to keep the brand alive and the mission alive, things are moving in the right direction as far as the custom-print side,” Shah said. “We hope to build ourselves back, then we can move into a space for what is sustainable — and where you can park.”
