SENSORY JOURNAL 013: Rebirth
•Posted on October 29 2025
I am SO excited, nervous, anxious, and ready to share that Burke will be opening its doors to a new brick & mortar location in Belmont Shore in Long Beach VERY soon!! Part of me thinks back to January and can't believe this is still the same year as everything that has happened since. And I certainly could never have anticipated everything that would transpire for me and for Burke in 2025, but I'm continuing to roll with the punches as I attempt to recount how exactly I got here, and prepare for another rebirth.
I remember distinctly the day after I announced publicly that I'd be closing my shop in downtown Long Beach earlier this year, two older women came in the shop who I'd never seen before in my 6 years there. They said they were neighborhood locals and they heard I was closing and came in to see if I had everything super discounted (I didn't). I said, "Unfortunately, yes, we'll be closing at the end of May to transition online." One woman then replied, "so May 31st is your death date??"
The way that sentence felt like a dagger to my heart after months of agonizing over the decision to close the store was something that will unfortunately stick with me. But my instant response was, "Or maybe it's my rebirth date?" To which she was taken a back and tried to say she had only been joking and that's 'just what people say' (please don't say this to businesses who are closing!).
In January of 2025, after consulting for a local non-profit for all of 2024, I was offered a full time position as Director of Programs. It had been 8 years since I had held a full time job, paycheck, and benefits that go along with it, and I was honored to be considered for such a role after just being a self-employed entrepreneur for so long. I knew getting back into a workforce and team environment would be extremely valuable for my experience, they were offering me flexibility to keep Burke running, and it seemed like an opportunity I couldn't pass up.
That same month, the Trump administration took office once again, and wildfires wreaked havoc in an unprecedented way across Los Angeles that caused traumatic effects across the entire region. All of these factors combined, among already struggling foot traffic in my downtown Long Beach location, caused sales to halt almost entirely. February and March, usually some of my strongest months of the year, didn't fare much better, and it was then I knew I was going to need to make difficult decisions.
I do believe one of the keys to entrepreneurship is being able to make timely decisions, take risks, and recognize opportunities, and follow your instincts to take them as they come. I don't know if I made all the right decisions this year, but in an unstable time, I was certainly trying to follow where the stable opportunities seemed to be leading. I crunched a lot of numbers, had many discussions with my business coach and life parter, and decided my business wasn't failing but the location I was in, was. Because I was now committed to a full time job that was offering me stability, and in-person business had been suffering, looking for another store location didn't seem like a viable option at the time. The non-profit allowed me to rent office space on their property to house my business in the meantime, and it allowed me to consolidate my life, so I followed that path that seemed like the right one at the time.
I was happy with my little transitional office/studio space. It felt like a place I could still accomplish work, and I was able to have a few customers visit for shopping appointments. But it wasn't long after transitioning the business mostly online that I realized having a full time job was really all-consuming of my time and energy, and engaging online is just not where my heart was at with Burke. I tried to find inspiration and get some guidance, but I wasn't finding my natural rhythm. Then, at the end of August, I found out the non-profit was shutting down completely, I'd be losing my job, and likely my office space as well. Everything I thought was going to be a much longer-term temporary fix was no longer an option. And I started to wonder if I had made all the wrong decisions this year.
About the last week of being employed full time, I found out I'd be receiving a severance and also passed by a small storefront space near my home in Belmont Shore while dropping off a package at the UPS. I decided to call and ask about the space because, why not? When I found out it was a space just slightly smaller than my last shop and a bit bigger than my office, I decided to take a look. It had great potential, didn't need too much work, and another tenant had just fallen through. I hadn't been considering another brick & mortar anytime soon as the costs of closing the last shop, moving out, and the combination of drastically decreased sales after closing the shop, left me financially back at square one. I was sure I'd have to save a lot of money or get another business loan (which I really did not want to do) to viably open another store. Then all of a sudden, this little jewel box of a space shows up the week I'm becoming unemployed and receiving a severance, and seems low-risk enough that I may just be able to pull it off without a significant loan if my boyfriend and I do all the labor ourselves.
The thought and consideration alone made me feel absolutely insane after all the transition I'd gone through over the last year. But my instinct was screaming at me to take the opportunity yet again, and for the first time maybe all year I didn't feel fear about the decision. One more time, I crunched a lot of numbers and had many conversations with my business coach and life partner, and with the support I needed I ultimately decided to go for it. I negotiated the lease over a couple of weeks, and it felt like there were many signs and synchronicities that were pointing to this working out. When I finally went to sign the lease, the landlord told me they strangely hadn't gotten any calls on the space over those couple of weeks, until that day, and it felt a little bit like the universe had been holding it for me to figure out I was ready. Sometimes there's no way to know if you make the right decision, you just have to have faith. And while it felt like I had lost so much this year, all of a sudden I gained a new beginning for my store under circumstances that simply could not have happened without all the other specific factors taking place in my life that were aligned with this timing as well.
To no one's surprise, I have spent more getting this new store ready than anticipated, so I did have to take a small Shopify loan to help. But it's just not in me to half-ass the design of a new environment! And I feel that Burke deserves all the new energy this location is getting. My boyfriend Omar, my little sister Judy (who is my favorite project partner and who I flew in from Ohio to help me for a few days), and myself have been working our tired butts off day and night to give new life to this little store space and get ready to welcome you all in. As usual, the building's architecture, this time in a historic 1927 brick building, has inspired most of the design direction for Burke Mercantile 3.0 (if you have been with me long enough, you know of both our previous brick & mortar spaces)! So, she's going to feel different from the other spaces in many ways, but I think you'll still feel the Burke DNA strongly. We are in between a nail salon and hair salon, and just a couple doors down from the amazing Colossus Bakery, brunch spot Let's Yolk About It, and soon to open Coffee Drunk! I've been so grateful to have everything I need, and then some, within a few blocks in Belmont Shore from the ACE Hardware, to UPS and the Post Office, my bank, my home, and lots of delicious treats (I've been living off of Salud Juice and The Win-dow currently)!
I'm excited to share more about the design and renovation process as the space is unveiled in November, and look forward to welcoming you in just in time for the Holiday shopping season! Stay tuned for opening announcements and more coming soon, and thank you, AS ALWAYS, for sticking with me through all of Burke's transformations.
And especially this new rebirth!
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