Middletown, it's been real!
Owning & operating a small business is pretty challenging. But the longer you do it, the easier it becomes to do all the shit you really don't want to have to do. That said, I am closing our Middletown storefront at the end of this year. Your last day to shop is Dec 27, 2025.
In 2015, I opened our flagship store at 520 Main Street. I had grand visions of what I wanted to do in the space and how to establish the brand in Middletown. It was a huge space - about 5000 square feet - with our store occupying the front half, and our printshop in the back. The lease was on the higher end of what I could afford in my second year of business, but I rise to a challenge. I hustled endlessly, developing different revenue streams & hosting tons of events.
I would be remiss to not acknowledge the friends who helped make the space retail ready - Emily, Brittany, Ali and of course David, even though he threw a hammer at my face. I sometimes think about that time, ten years ago, and all the people who helped me. Did we all just have way more free time back then? Like... what was that? THANK YOU #sograteful
In late 2019, the building was purchased by an out of state developer. Before I renewed the lease I wanted them to commit to repairing the roof (which leaked constantly) and a few other structural fixes. They were on board & I was ready to renew, but when the pandemic hit I got the feeling that those improvements would not become reality. I knew I should find a new space to operate my brand. It was the right call.
I asked my father in law if I could rent out a section of his 19,000SF warehouse and build out a new printshop. He agreed, and renovating that space was my entire pandemic experience. So while the store was closed because we were all social distancing from home, I was executing a huge transition for c+s.
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Cinder + salt has 3 core revenue streams - retail, wholesale and custom. Each account for about a third of our business. Rent and overhead for an industrial or manufacturing space is usually half, or a third of the price of prime retail space. I didn’t want to keep renting such a huge space at Main Street retail rates when two thirds of our revenue came from sources other than the storefront. So in late 2020 when my lease ended, we moved the printshop to our family owned industrial building in Southington, and downsized our store to 1000SF at 195 Main St. And the new store was so cute, and much more manageable.
Cinder + salt fared reasonably well during the pandemic but it was a great reminder about how little control you have, so I set some goals for our new storefront. I promised myself that if we didn’t hit the goals, I wouldn’t renew the lease. Now that the other arms of the business had their own overhead to worry about, I didn’t want to subsidize our retail operations with what we did at our printshop.
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Long story short, we have not been able to meet our sales goals over the past 5 years. And while I could just stay the course and keep trying to build the retail experience I believe in, I'm not doing as good a job at anything as I want to because I am stretched too thin. So, I've accepted that what we’re doing just hasn’t been working.
And trust me, we’ve done A LOT. Aside from product launches, influencer get-togethers, 'outsider' sip & shops and local vendor pop ups, we have hosted over two dozen street, river & trail clean-ups downtown. We have collaborated with The Rockfall Foundation, Russell Library, a dozen+ businesses along Main St, the City of Middletown, Time of Day Band, the Downtown Business District, countless Wesleyan students and CT Forest and Parks Association, to name a few.
But the project I’m most proud of is Middletown First Fridays (formerly Middletown Arts Fest). For five years we hosted live music, an open mic, the indie makers market and all walks of performers on Main St. We partnered with dozens of businesses, hundreds of local artisans and many people at city hall to make the event series a success. It has truly been an honor to host and coordinate the Middletown First Fridays series and l look forward to supporting it in the future as we hand the baton to our neighbors.
Some of the most memorable, and my personal favorite events over the years have been The OG Black Friday, Sustainability Social Hours, Friends & Family Day and of course Small (but mighty) Business Saturday. I am so thankful to everyone who came out to enjoy these events and make them what they were. I will also never forget our Golden Birthday celebration (10 years) when we saw SO MANY customers who supported us since day one. It meant so much.
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I think my younger self would feel like closing the Middletown store is a personal failure. When I signed that lease I felt like I had so much to prove to everyone in my life, and to myself. But time has taught me that the only thing I have anything to prove to is my company; if I take care of it, it will take care of me. That’s why every Thanksgiving morning you will find me at work. It’s my favorite quiet time, in my favorite place, feeling very grateful for my reality.
And my reality lately is that stress is slowly killing me. (Cue the maniacal laughter!) The past two years have been insanely challenging for me, between running stores in two states, purchasing our own commercial building and moving the printshop AGAIN, trying to churn out new products every month, quarter, year. I'm not doing anything as well as I want to, and I will never be able to get caught up if I continue to commit to too much.
I feel very strongly about the need for independent retail, and a callback to simpler times & community connection. There is nothing like strolling down a bustling Main street, of any town, anywhere, and finding new and exciting products, captivating storefronts and the creative, hard-working people behind them. But the visions I had for our Middletown store never quite came to fruition for me. Balancing the needs of the business with my childhood dreams of being a shopkeeper has only gotten more challenging as cinder + salt has grown in other directions.
Being able to work for myself and center my life on the things I am passionate about means everything to me. And I am much tougher now - deciding to close Middletown was a very easy choice. It doesn’t serve the company, it doesn’t help us grow, and keeping it would only slow me down. I ain't got time for that!! It’s my responsibility to focus on the areas of the business that work, rather than the ones that need work.
I hope to see as many of you as possible in Middletown before we close on Dec 27. Our store will be fully stocked through the end of the year, with all the unique, quirky, colorful & charitable goodies you’ve come to expect from us.
We have a couple upcoming events including a Secret Sale Sip & Shop on Dec 11 so you can find the perfect holiday gifts before our store gets totally picked over. And yes, things will be discounted, but we can't tell you how much!
We're not saying goodbye to retail in Connecticut altogether. I'm just taking a minute to reframe and get on a course that will help me meet the mark with our next shop.
This winter, we're focusing on building out our custom showroom at our new Print Studio in Bristol CT - soft opening slated for Jan 2026. Keep your eyes peeled for that!!
Most importantly, a million thanks to everyone who shopped with us in Middletown over the past decade. We are so grateful for the experience and privilege of being your stop for gifts, clothes and treating yourself!
Many Thanks!
-Rachel
PS : Just to clarify, David didn't throw a hammer at my face. He left a multi-tool on top of a ladder, and when I moved the ladder it hit me square in the forehead. I will never forget the absolutely priceless look in his eyes when he watched the slowest moving drop of blood dribble down my forehead. LMAO! I may never let him live it down because that's what friends are for.