Bodega Has Reopened Its Los Angeles Store After Nearly Shuttering
Bodega isn’t done just yet.
Jay Gordon, one of the iconic retailer’s founders, sent shockwaves throughout the sneaker world in late March when he informed Sneaker Freaker that Bodega — which debuted in Boston in 2006 — was on the brink of closing. However, as of Thursday, the challenged retailer showed new signs of life.
Bodega’s store in Los Angeles, which it shut down temporarily in late March, has reopened. The store — which is located at 1320 E. 7th St. Suite 150 at Row DTLA — will be open five days a week, from 12-6 p.m. Doors will be closed on Tuesdays and Wednesdays.
“I’m excited. We’ve been there setting up and I’ve been there every day for the last week. Everyone’s been coming by excited to talk about us reopening,” Gordon told FN. “It’s going to be a bit of a surprise to people because we really are bootstrapping this.”
How Bodega Got Here
For Bodega, things were all good just four years ago.
Watch on FN
Speaking with FN, Gordon stated “everything on paper looked great” in 2021, including sales and profit margins. However, not long after Bodega’s solid year, aside from general economic challenges, Kanye West was embroiled in an ongoing drama with Adidas led to the downfall of the Yeezy business and Nike experienced a slowdown. These factors, and more, made the challenges Bodega was facing seem insurmountable.
“Margins in this business aren’t great. With stuff falling off, falling even 10 or 20 percent in topline sales was disastrous to the business,” he said. “It’s all on me. I didn’t act fast enough.”
With the situation looking dire, Gordon said Bodega explored several options, including partnerships or a complete buyout, with each one falling apart.
“It sounds insane, but I thought we would get out of this up until a couple weeks ago,” Gordon said. “I flew all over the world, I met with a bunch of different companies. I thought we’d find the right person if we talked to enough people, but we got to the point where most we were talking to were international, and they either weren’t psyched about retail in general or they weren’t psyched about the political landscape in the U.S., and they wanted to hold off. They were like talk to us in a year or two. We didn’t have that luxury.”
A New-Look Bodega
As Bodega attempts to rebound, starting with its reopening in L.A., things at the company look quite different.
For instance, Bodega was founded by Gordon, Oliver Mak and Dan Natola. Gordon said the retailer’s ownership hasn’t changed, but as far as day-to-day operations are concerned, he’s the only one left.
Also, Bodega was forced to lay off its entire corporate team this year, which Gordon said was roughly 30 people. He also stated that Bodega employed more than 90 people at one point, but the current crew — including himself — is down to eight.
“Everyone’s going to wear a couple hats, everyone’s trying to help out with everything — and obviously it’s a lot,” Gordon said. “We’re all having to learn new stuff so it’s kind of fascinating. Even simple stuff, like using the POS [point of sale] system and receiving product. It’s all new to everybody so we’re all trying to learn together.”
As for the retailer’s website, it is still inactive. However, Gordon said it will be up-and-running “soon.” He also confirmed Bodega’s original Boston home at 6 Clearway St. will never reopen, however it could once again have a presence in the city.
“I have another location picked out for Boston, if we can get our act together and get back there,” he said. “The developer that owns it is a friend. He’d be willing to work with us, but I have to show him that we’re moving in the right direction.”
Gordon anticipates a potential 2026 return for Bodega in Boston.
Also, Bodega’s brand mix will look a bit different.
“A lot of the luxury brands we had are not there and it’s going to be a very different vibe, but I’m excited because it’s how we started, with cool, independent brands and we had to educate the consumer. That’s fun. It’s all stuff we’re excited about and our guys wear, so it’s a good thing,” Gordon said.
In terms of footwear, Gordon said he’s trying to work with all of Bodega’s vendors to get back to a point where it can bring product in again. So far, he was able to secure current sneakers from heavyweights Nike and Puma, and he confirmed Bodega has a new project with the latter coming this summer. Also, consumers will find new styles from Amsterdam-based sneaker brand Neutra in store, and Gordon said they could also potentially find looks from Løci soon.
As for the other footwear brands Bodega has stocked in the past, Gordon said he is continuing to work with each vendor one by one. “That’s the only play I see right now, to start going in the right direction, make things right one by one with our key vendors and get back to the point where we can move in the right direction substantially,” he said.
Speaking with FN, Gordon specifically stated he’s most recently been working to make things right with the likes of Salomon, Asics and Saucony.
Though challenged already, Gordon is working on righting the ship as the industry is navigating U.S. President Donald Trump’s tariffs on China, which climbed to 145 percent on Thursday, just one day after he paused retaliatory tariffs on most other nations. As somewhat of a relief, the storeowner stated tariffs currently aren’t his biggest problem.
“It’s not impacting what we’re bringing in so far because mostly we’re trying to work with local, independent clothing lines on top of the footwear brands. And the footwear brands, how do they even know? It’s changing day to day,” Gordon said. “It’s literally not been the same for three days in a row, and it won’t be in three days from now.”
As for collaborations, which have long been a staple of the Bodega business, it released the Patchwork Wallabee 3.0 “Northeast Corridor” with Clarks in late March. However, given the retailer’s current tentative situations with several vendor partners, other collaborations are on hold.
“Collaborations are on hold because of the credit situation, so I’m trying to go after them one by one, but it’s going to take time. I need guys to work with us, but I’ve already had a bunch of conversations about keeping some stuff going and we’ll just have to go through it now on a case by case basis,” Gordon said.
Though admitting he’s probably not the best person to offer advice at the moment, given the challenges retail is facing, Gordon did offer words of encouragement for his peers.
“Rely on your local community, see what kind of deals you can make, try to look at one little problem at a time and handle just one thing at a time. If you look at the whole thing together, it’s daunting, it’s paralyzing,” Gordon said. “But if you can take care of one thing and another thing and another thing and keep moving in the right direction. I’ll tell you in a year if it works, but that’s my plan.”
