Boutique uses basement to expand, offering Western clothing and accessories

Tim Harty, The Business Times

To meet a need for Western flair in her downtown Grand Junction store, Susan Lettman looked in the basement at 354 Main St. There, she came up with an idea that more than doubled the size of Klik Boutique’s display space and clothing offerings.

Then, on Oct. 1, she unveiled Klik’s Western Underground, which a sandwich board in front of Klik Boutique touted as: A Little Wild. A Little Western. A Whole lotta Klik.

The store’s basement had mostly been used for storage, and another business, custom-hat-maker Laredo Hat Bar, has leased a small area in the basement for the past year-and-a-half.

After Lettman bought the commercial condominium, which Klik had been leasing, on May 14 this year, she decided it was time to do something more with the space underground. The basement actually is more square feet than the main floor, which is dedicated to the Boho-chic fashion the store has sold for 17 years.

Lettman wanted to add women’s Western wear to the store, and she consulted Laredo Hat Bar owner Sarah Ryken about it.

“We just thought it would be a great way to kind of collab the two together,” Lettman said. “I had this space available down here, and we just used it for like parties once or twice a month. And I just felt like I was missing an opportunity to offer this to the community. We just decided to come up with a plan, and a month later, here we are.

“It’s still Klik Boutique, but we decided to name downstairs Klik’s Western Underground, just because it’s in the basement. I thought it was kind of a fun little flair to what I’ve already been doing for the last 17 years.”

Lettman wanted to open Klik’s Western Underground on Sept. 1, coinciding with Klik’s 17tth anniversary, but it got delayed a month. It still works out well with the holiday shopping season coming up.

“I feel like the timing’s perfect,” she said. “I feel like the fall is kind of our busier time anyway. Everybody’s gearing up for like the sweaters and the jeans and the coats, so, yeah, perfect time.”

Lettman said the basement is about 2,000 square feet, and some of it is office space, but she said she still has about 1,700 square feet for displaying Western clothes and accessories.

“I love to kind of dress the Western look,” she said. “I love the styles of it. And I felt like everybody was coming in wanting more of that. So, I feel like there was a need for it.

“But it obviously just started out because I wanted to. And I wanted to fill the space. I bought this building within the last year, and I just felt like the space needed to be utilized.”

The Western flair isn’t the only thing Klik Boutique added to the store on Oct. 1. Lettman said there’s now a small bar on the main floor, and she’s able to provide her customers with wine and beer. Her clientele is mostly women, but sometimes they bring their husbands along, and Lettman wanted to accommodate both.

“I just wanted to really make it a great experience, no matter who walks in the door,” she said. “Like, if a guy’s coming in here shopping with his wife or whatever, and he’s like, ‘What am I gonna do?’ I’m like, ‘Here, I got a beer for you.’ … I felt like that was kind of cool.”

She wishes her timing had been slightly better, though, as she shared this story on Oct. 5:

“Actually, over the weekend, there was a lot of people that really appreciated that. There was a gentleman that came in a week prior to (the bar opening), and he’s like, ‘Man, where can I just go get a beer?’ And I was like, ‘Oh, one more week, buddy, you know?’”

Lettman couldn’t make the beer sale that day, but she directed the man to a nearby bar, then thought to herself, “Dang, it’s going to be so cool that I can offer that.”