It's hard to find the right words, so bear with me.

We're closing our San Diego storefront to reduce overhead and stay in business.

Boy, was I naive and ambitious when Miss Tara told me she was moving across the country, to consider a retail space instead of an industrial one for my new workspace in San Diego. I had no way of knowing I was about to become disabled. And things went downhill for RG from there.

Wells Fargo lost a $4,000 wire to our leather supplier in 2021.

The contractor provided by the landlord to refinish the floors of the shop took us for about $7,000 and left us with an unusable floor. Worse, the layers he'd put down in epoxy started bubbling after the shop was open. 

While I was home in pain and brain fog that rendered me pretty much helpless for close to 18 months, the store was made without me, was running without me. And a lot of shit was going wrong.

It's been a struggle from day one, and we're heartbroken to have to make this decision, but it's time to recognize that we can't do this AND keep up with our website, marketing, orders, and new product. And I want to do those things well.

Too much was out of my control for close to 2 years. Our team is goddamn amazing, but even the best of us struggled through the pandemic. Our service levels took a hit and it was driving me mad the whole time to be stuck in bed unable to help.

Now that I've accommodated my disabilities I'm working 6 days a week again, albeit half-days. We're catching up on all the things that fell through the cracks while we struggled the most.

Budget-wise, we've been struggling for too long, and it's holding us back. My options were to cut staff or close the store - and I obviously choose our people over the vanity of keeping the store. (Not to mention the fact that we can't run without them!)

Our hope is we can quickly settle in to my garage to avoid shipping disruptions, host one hell of a sale to help us cover the cost of closing, and in the not too distant future we'll be restocking our favorite leather & hardware, and working more expos and cons around the country in 2024. We'll also be refreshing our wholesale program, opening up commissions, establishing community events locally and virtually once we secure venues, and yes bringing back The Back Room!

And with a much more focused team in-house we can produce a lot more new and beautiful things for y'all! 

Restrained Grace San Diego will be closed by the end of May 2023.

But we're NOT going out of business!

We'll be stronger than ever before you know it. 

Thank you for supporting our tiny business through it all. This huge 40% off sale is our thank you for sticking with us through the worst of it. We'll keep having regular sales even after we're back in the black - both as a thank you and as a way to make our goods more accessible as everything else on the planet gets more expensive. 

Together, we've built an incredible community both online and locally surrounding Restrained Grace, and together we'll get through this, too.

All of my love,

Miss Annie