Celebrating, as we close our Minneapolis store.

Chad and I wanted to reach out with a note of tremendous thanks for your continued support of Carver Junk Company. We are blessed with the best customers, who have been such advocates for what we do, and the dozens of small businesses we represent, and we want to be the first to share some big news with you!

This summer we celebrate nearly five awesome years at our Minneapolis location. The next two months will be bittersweet, as we have made the decision to close our doors at this location while we focus on other areas of our business. Our CJC store at 4748 Chicago Ave will be open Saturdays and Sundays through May, with some fun events in mid-June before we close our doors.

Why?   We're making a conscious decision to re-align our priorities.

We could say this was a difficult decision, or that we’re really sad to be closing this location. It would be easy to apologize or see this as a business failure, but the truth is that the market, economy, business and families change. All of those things are true in this case, and the thing of which we're most proud is the CJC team’s ability to continue adapting to changing markets, trends and business models. We’re relieved and excited about this decision, and what it means for all of us, so we’ll spend the rest of our time here celebrating this great run. Our Chaska store will remain open, and with more focus will be better than ever!

Our business revolves around small businesses and families. And our decision to close Minneapolis was made in support of those things. As Chad and I have grown our own family, and my career outside of CJC continues to grow, we realize that we are stretched too thin. For 7 years, we’ve been telling our friends & family that this year “we’ll have more time” for them. For 4 years, we’ve been balancing two locations, plus special events, plus our home lives. When you do too many things, you can’t possibly do them all well, which impacts not only the business, but our family and the families and businesses of our makers. 

We’ve never been afraid to say “yes,” as we have continued to grow and create exciting new concepts in the refinished/handmade/local business market. We commit to learning with each endeavor, and as we grow as individuals, business partners, and a family, we’ve learned that we also must know when to say “no.”

As a business, our goal is to offer unique, creative, quality products and experiences to our customers, while supporting the families of our makers, our staff, and our own family. We have expanded our brick and mortar locations to an online shop. We ramped up our DIY workshop offerings, created innovative new events like CJC@HOME. We brought DIY Succulent Bars to Minnesota, created sweet fundraisers like Puppy Kissing Booths, and launched an Interior Design division; all with the goal of continuing to grow this incredible team and business.

With each of those new launches, we take time as a family and a business to evaluate what’s successful and where we need to adjust. We’ve had events & ideas that are incredible success, some that we chalk up to “it was worth a shot,” and we’ve had events that are great but not necessarily in alignment with what CJC really means to us and to you as customers. And as we grow, our definition of success continues to evolve as well.

This year, in 2019, success = Focus.

• Focus on our core business of offering home furnishings and décor, through our retail and interior design avenues.
• Focus on CJC-produced events centered around home furnishings, décor, and locally-made items.
• Focus on doing fewer things, but doing every single one of them at less than 110% instead of more things at less than 100%.

In order to focus on our core location in Chaska, we’ve made the decision to close our Minneapolis store. As our focus shifts to Chaska, and doing bigger, better things in what we consider our flagship location, we’re excited to continue and expand our events & offerings.  

We’re looking forward to our best year ever in 2019, and we couldn’t be more thankful to have you all as our customers!

- Chad & Brandy, and the whole CJC team.