Store that relocated to Bradley Fair less than a year ago is about to close
The store moved to Bradley Fair just shy of a year ago, but it just wasn’t busy enough.
So the owner of Pink Saloon/Assembly 19 Clothing Boutique, Jill Hattan, is preparing to close the 20-year-old store for good. She’s launching some going-out-of-business sales this weekend and says that the store will be gone by the end of June.
“Bradley Fair we thought would bring some shopping traffic, and it absolutely has not,” said Hattan, who in July moved the men’s and women’s clothing store from Waterfront Plaza, 1423 N. Webb Road, to a space at 8111 E. 21st St., right next to YaYa’s Eurobistro.
Not only was the store not able to get new customers at Bradley Fair, Hattan said, but it lost some of the customers it previously had at Waterfront Plaza.
“Even though it’s only a couple miles, it seems to make a big difference in Wichita,” she said.
Pink Saloon originally opened in El Dorado in 2006. In 2009, its owner moved it to Douglas and Oliver before relocating it in 2014 to Waterfront Plaza, at the northwest corner of 13th and Webb.
Hattan bought the store in 2020, calling it a “passion project.” In September 2024, she added men’s clothing to the shop and named that side of the store Assembly 19.
She said she suspects that cultural shifts since the COVID-19 pandemic contributed to the decline of the store as well. It sells high-end brands such as Rails, Mother Denim, Farm Rio, Frame, Ben Sherman and Citizens of Humanity.
“People’s dressing habits really have gotten more casual, and so people are not dressing up as much,” Hattan said. “I think there are fewer events, and online shopping is huge. Although we spent a lot of time, effort and money on revamping all of our online stuff. . . we’re competing against the world.”
Closing the store will make her sad, she said, calling Pink Saloon “my fun place.” But it has to be done.
“I feel like it’s really nice to have nice things in Wichita,” she said. “But I did a Facebook post several months ago, and I said, ‘Look, if people want this store, they’re going to have to support it,’” she said. “Maybe people don’t care that much about the store. I still like shopping, but I think a lot of people don’t shop like that anymore. “
Hattan, the CEO of Don Hattan car dealerships in the Wichita area, who last year opened the new Point Nine restaurant in Andover, said that closing a business was an unfamiliar feeling.
“I’m not used to being on this side of things,” she said.
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