Yak and Yeti will close by end of August
Hermosa resident Jada Makagawa and friend Taylor McBrien, visiting from Canada, eye some crystals inside Yak and Yeti this week. The store will close at the end of August. Visible in the background is a stained-glass window installed by the building’s former tenant, the legendary headshop Greeko’s. Photo
Molli Scott moved to Palm Springs after growing up in the South Bay, but at least once a year, she and her fiance Aaron Cadama head back for a weekend. They cruise along Hermosa Avenue and stop in at some of their favorite stores.
So it came as something of a disappointment when on Tuesday they saw that Yak and Yeti was closing. The couple make a point of stopping in every time they come to town.
“It’s kind of upsetting knowing this place won’t be here soon. It’s one in a million,” Cadama said.
Yak and Yeti, a retailer near the intersection of Hermosa and Pier Avenues, will be closing at the end of August. The store offers clothing, jewelry, sculptures and more, all tinged with exotic Hindu and Buddhist influences. Statues of the Buddha and Ganesh, the elephantine remover of obstacles, lord over handbags and Tibetan singing bowls.
The loss of the retailer comes amid ongoing turnover among businesses in Hermosa’s downtown. A few blocks away, on the other side of Hermosa Avenue, a block that once housed retail stores has been vacant since 2017. The tenants, a barber shop and several vintage clothing stores, departed when they were unable to pay raised rents.
Yak and Yeti’s exit is symbolic in part because of its location: it sits in the building once occupied by Greeko’s, a headshop that operated on Hermosa Avenue for decades and epitomized the bohemian mystique that drew many to the town. Iconic fixtures, including the cobblestone frontage and stained-glass windows in the rear, still remain.
Resident Adam Malovani lamented that the store’s looming departure represented yet another wound to the quirky, independent spirit of the city’s downtown.
“Even though it’s not like Greeko’s closing, it does still represent a changing of Hermosa. These funky places: there are very few of them left,” Malovani said.
Co-owner Satish Bhattachan said that Yak and Yeti first opened on Pier Avenue in 2004, next to the former Los Muchachos Mexican restaurant. When Greeko’s came under new ownership in 2008, the new proprietors saved money by consolidating and moving into half of the building, with Yak and Yeti taking over the other half. (The new Greeko’s closed for good in 2012.)
But some of the same forces that compelled Greeko’s closure — shifting retail habits, and an evolving Hermosa — helped bring down Yak and Yeti. Bhattachan said that business has slowed in the past few years and that the landlord wanted to raise the rent by 25 percent. (John Warren, who originally opened Greeko’s in 1966, remains the building’s owner.)
Bhattachan said that he currently has no plans to reopen the store in another location. Yak and Yeti has a wholesale operation run out of a warehouse in Torrance, he said, and the growing trend toward online shopping makes it more profitable to focus on internet sales.
Barbara Kreiss, a senior vice president with SVN Asset Advisory Group, which is handling the lease and search for a new tenant, said that they plan to seek a rent of $4,800 per month for the space. They have not decided on a new tenant but said there are multiple offers.
“We have several proposals on the table. They go from fitness studios to jewelry stores, to a flower shop, to a tobacco pipe store. There’s been a variety of interest in users,” Kreiss said.
Bhattachan said that he appreciates the patronage that locals and visitors have provided over the years and that since a “For Rent” sign went up weeks ago, customers have been pouring in. They are coming in to take advantage of store-closing discounts but also, he said, to say goodbye.
“Everyone’s coming in, and a lot of people are sad. There are not that many stores like ours: unique, one of a kind. Everywhere you go these days is a Gap, an Old Navy: it gets boring. We wanted to give some charm to the city,” he said.