The New Home of Cry If I Want To

For those of you who want to know what our new home looks like, here's a before picture of the outside:

And here's during - we've begun removing the sign and have powerwashed off the yellow paint: A little before picture, showing the inside of our store from the front door (the counter & freezer remained from the previous tenant) - note that the suspended ceiling ...

Is now gone...
And we're still working on the inside of the store...

If we get our way, the store will look nothing like the above when we're finished with it!!! We've got tons of work ahead of us (flooring, ceilings, lighting, painting, among other things), but we're still aiming for an early-mid November opening.

Wish us luck!

We're Getting Ready ...

I've been inspired reading a Toronto Life blog about a restaurant opening ... it's nice to know that we're not the only ones struggling to get everything together.



1175 Queen St, our new home, has so much potential, and yet there's so much work to do. The floors, ceilings, basement ... oh my! And there's only a few weeks left to do it in. We're starting to get deliveries as well, and we're very excited to open and show off the fun we've had sourcing stuff for you!



Cry If I Want To will have a larger selection of easy food/drink mixes. We've kept ourselves busy trying them out, so we know you'll like them too!



There's also a kids party section ... we're still finding things we like that we are trying to bring in for you ... all will fit into our theme of contemporary party (kids are cool too, you know!), and will be as unwasteful & green as possible.



You loved our party conversation cards when we first brought them in ... well now we've got more, fun topics for you to enjoy.



We're also creating a space so that if you just want to sit & chat with us, or if you want advice on your event, we'll have resources easily available to help you with them.

There's much more in store ... too much for one blog posting....



In the next few posts we'll try to post some pictures of the new store for you - so you can see our progress. Stay tuned!


Ciao for now,
Allison

We're Moving On Up ... to the East Side!!!

If you say it, and believe it, it will happen …

Not really sure what wise person said this, but there is a bit of truth to this … at least a little. When we first conceptualized cry if I want to, we had no idea how it would happen, but we said we would be open in the summer of 2007 … after months of looking for an affordable and suitable place, after a lot of disappointment and just when it seemed that it would be impossible to open that same summer, our friends Sapna and Amanda of Liloo came up with the idea of us sharing space with them. So was the start of our humble beginnings… in July of 2007 we had a storefront as promised.

After a year in business, we had outgrown our space and were ready to forge our own identity in the retail world, so we needed to find our own space for this to happen. In August of 2008 we closed up shop at Liloo and promised our faithful cliental that we would re-open in Fall of 2008. Well my friends, just this afternoon, we delivered our deposit cheque to our new landlord and we have every intention of opening our doors on November 1, 2008. For those of you who don’t know, Fall starts in the 3rd week of September and goes until the 3rd week of December … so we're keeping our promise!

In November cry if i want to will reopen its doors to you in Leslieville. We will start off with a party, a fundraiser for Willow Breast Cancer Support Canada on November 26th … stay tuned for your invite and more information, but save the date, it will be a fun evening.!

Okay, I know that we may have mentioned a little something about an online shopping site being up and running in September (did we say which September?). Unfortunately, we are a little behind with this project – it is a bit more involved than we ever imagined, but I can promise that it will get done.

This business venture has certainly taught me the power of positive thinking. "If you believe it you can achieve it"! That rhymes so it must be Jesse Jackson who coined that one … give me a second to google it ... I was almost right ... this is actually his quote:

“If my mind can conceive it, and my heart can believe it, I know I can achieve it.” J. Jackson

See you in November!

Rochelle