our supercool new warehouse and showroom and why we need to be left alone except for thursdays from 11-6


Because of a confluence of recent events, we are backpedaling on our earlier claim of opening a second retail location in bellingham, wa.  

Well, sort of...

In our haste to find a new production facility, we found this one on ohio street and really thought we'd make a go of opening an additional little honey shop. We rented a rototiller and replanted the entire front garden bed with bee friendly flowers, we had custom signs made for the marquee we painted the interior and exterior of the building and set up a rudimentary honey shop that has garnered quite a bit of attention.  The momentum was there and then a couple very important variables emerged that gave us pause in our ambitions.

firstly, our store in Pike place market has been keeping us more than busy on it's own, and to grow bigger before we have seamless systems in place could potentially lead to disastrous levels of burnout and frustration.  in fact, we are limiting many other ambitions, including farmers markets that we used to attend (sorry guys!) and not accepting any more wholesale accounts until we are steady on our ever growing feet.

Secondly, we have noticed right off the bat that this new industrial fringe downtown location has almost no walking traffic, and those that are passing by are usually just wandering around, either from the brewery or towards the food bank.  Multiple times in the last few weeks we have had the doors closed and been working when men have decided to come in, unannounced and uninvited, and either tell us what to do or start asking questions and looking around.  WTF???!!!  Seriously, we are dealing with live bees coming and going all the time on honey supers, the door says private property and is the back delivery door anyway.  Additionally, we are staffed predominantly with women, often times working alone and having the threat of strange men just walking in the door anytime is terrifying.  Soooo, we tried locking the doors.  Men (well one, who was wearing a blanket on a 90 degree day) have decided then to pound on the door and shout until we pay attention to them.  Good grief!  The entitlement is astounding!  So we posted signs, indicating a potential for harm by live bees, private property, and to literally go away.  These signs hang on the back roll door and delivery door and are meant to offer us some privacy while working.  We have a bare bones skeleton crew of people responsible for quite a bit of work, and we simply don't have time to answer questions or explain what we are up to.  But it's great that the interest exists, and reminds me personally of how much more I need to share here on the website.

 

Are you still here?  Still reading?  good, cuz now its time for the good news!  We have partnered with our old friends growing washington and their wildly successful and totally amazing local choice food box csa program this year, and not only are we offering 7 different honey sizes to it's current members, we are opening our showroom every thursday from 11-6 as a drop spot for members to pick up their farm fresh foods!  which means we will be open to the public and will have all kinds of honey and honey products for sale!!!  It's true!  and it starts tomorrow!!!!!  11am-6pm each thursday and we are really excited to see what happens.