It’s been a rough year for us. As many of you know, we lost Sue, our matriarch, mom, and Country Roads founder somewhat unexpectedly just a few months ago, in November. 2020 was a tough year for everyone, and running a small business – especially dealing with being closed for over two months at the start of the pandemic - added all sorts of challenges and stresses we had never before faced…but nothing prepared us for losing Sue.
Just two months (to the day) after her death, we were given notice on our lease in our main corner building. We had occupied that space since the day Country Roads opened on January 1st, 1993. We had no plan or anticipation of leaving it, and it pains us greatly to have had to dismantle what Sue quite literally built so many years ago, especially knowing how much pride and joy she took in this shop, and how much she wanted her children and grandchildren to keep running it.
We are NOT closing. We have downsized to our two other adjoining buildings, where you may have noticed a lot of redecorating happening over the past few months. Our new address is 216 W. Chapman, our new door just one door down from our original one. We are excited about our remodel, and all the hard work our vendors have done to make this happen.
Excited as we are about our new look, we are still very disappointed. We wanted to stay where we were, especially in the immediate aftermath of losing Sue. That building carries nearly thirty years of history for our Country Roads family. Our story isn’t unique, unfortunately - as Old Town Orange has grown in popularity in the past decade, many other long time small businesses have found themselves in a similar situation.
As we look at what has happened over the past few months, we know we are lucky we are to have generations of long-time customers, their children, and some of their grandchildren coming in to keep us smiling! To know you all, know your families, AND your awesome dogs that come in to see us – it’s amazing! Our business is more than one family, it’s multiple generations of several families that work here, and it’s also dozens of vendors and antique dealers that generate income from what we do in these walls. We know many of you were heartbroken over losing Sue, and have shown great support with our latest challenge, and we are very thankful for that – it’s quite literally what has gotten us through the past few months.
So, as is our nature, we are forging on, doing what we do, and we’ll be seeing you still, just one door down, where things might look a bit different, but the spirit is still there.
