THUNDER BAY – Alberta Davis says when one door closes, another one opens.
The Thunder Bay entrepreneur isn’t sure where that second door will lead, but nonetheless says it’s time to put the furniture business in the past after 25 years.
Davis is the owner of Barewood Furniture, where more than 60 people lined up on Wednesday morning to get first crack at the store’s going-out-of-business and retirement sale.
It’s an emotional morning, she said, adding she’s looking forward to the next chapter in her life, which will most certainly involve sailing eastward into the eastern sunrise.
“I think all good things have to come to an end,” Davis said.
“It’s very exciting and it’s wonderful to have all this support from our customers that we’ve had for 25 years. Everybody’s obviously excited and looking forward, but it’s a new chapter for me and it’s time to retire and move on to other things.”
Davis opened the store in 1993 in an old, refurbished garage, moving to its current 11th Avenue location in 2007.
“We’ve had a very distinctive store in the city and I’m sure that there will be other distinctive stores. There’s lots of local talent that it will continue,” she said.
“I’m going to miss the buying trips, for one thing, because they were always a lot of fun. It was fun to source things for the store. And I’m going to miss our customers. We’ve always had more of a friendship relationship with a lot of them, than just a strictly seller-buyer big-box type of thing.”
The closing out sale will continue until all the merchandise has been sold. Davis wasn’t sure how long that will take.
