Store Closing As Sales Plummet

The colorful t-shirts of Everything’s Jake still proclaim that “Life is Good,” but the harsh business climate has not borne out the optimism of their mantra.

Everything’s Jake—an outdoor apparel store that carries “Life is Good” merchandise—will shut its doors permanently this weekend after two and a half years in the Harvard Square Garage.

Store owner Glen Tompkins said that the closing was “just another sign of the times.”

Everything’s Jake opened for business in August of 2006, and Tompkins will continue to pay lease for the property until this coming March.

“It’s the location of Harvard Square that’s just not suitable to the brand,” Tompkins said. “We love Harvard Square and we’re disappointed to move on, but we’re going to move on with optimism.”

Tompkins also said that he is still looking to open a “Life is Good” store at a different location and has considered Cape Cod and even Florida.

David M. Orazine, who has worked at Everything’s Jake since July of last year, also attributed the store’s waning sales to the recession.

“People just aren’t buying and consumer confidence is down, although you don’t need me to tell you any of this,” Orazine said.

According to Orazine, daily revenue used to average around two or three thousand a day in the shop’s earlier months.

“Compared with a couple of years ago, we’d be lucky if we could make 500 or 600 dollars a day now,” he added. Orazine also said that while the store had previously been able to thrive on profits from the tourism season, it could no longer make ends meet until this summer.

“We’re not even making enough to cover overhead,” he said. “Paying such a high rent here is just unrealistic at this point.”

Vanessa R. Levy, a tourist from Venezuela who was browsing the store yesterday, said that she still found the closing disheartening.

“It’s a sign of the economic crisis, and in this time jobs are lost and ideas are gone,” Levy said.

The “Life is Good” brand, which is now worth nearly $120 million, took off after brothers Bert and John Jacobs began selling handmade t-shirts bearing the Jake logo at a Cambridge street fair in 1994.

Everything’s Jake rents from Trinity Property, which also owns the rest of The Garage, the 50 Church St. building, the Harvard Square Parking Garage, and the Smith Place near Alewife.

Tompkins said that he did not know who would fill the vacancy.

—Staff writer Shan Wang can be reached at wang38@fas.harvard.edu.