Lacing up our dancing shoes
from Molly
Big things are happening folks! I’m typing from our brand new warehouse in White Hall, MD. Over the next month, you’ll see our construction process and new shop policies on social media. So for now, I just want to share some feelings with you and clue you into how we got here. This move is so incredibly huge for us. Over the past 2 years we stopped advertising and were forced to turn away thousands of dollars in orders because we were at capacity. What does “at capacity” mean exactly? For the past 5 years, we’ve had 1 manual press and 1 printer (aka Nick… aka my brand new husband in case you missed it!). For the past 2 years, if he wasn’t on stage playing a show with Old Eastern, Nick has been slaving away in the basement about 20 hours a day. Literally slaving: my own mother had to tell me to give him a break every now and then; we were seriously concerned he had scurvy for awhile; he has been napping in a pile of shop towels and test shirts on the floor of the basement instead of in bed so he could keep grinding.
While we would never change the choice we made to open Old Eastern Ink Shop, the past 2 years have been really really rough. Even though we were “at capacity” we weren’t able to grow because every day was a hustle to catch up with yesterday’s work. So at the beginning of 2022 we started to get serious about how to take the next step. We looked into label printing (think brewery distribution), embroidery (yes, I know, you all ask us for it all the time, in due time my friends), outsourcing, stickers, live printing, DTG, and so many other ideas. We always thought an autopress was out of reach. But in the summer of 2022 the stars started to align. We were approved for a state grant, Project Restore, that would pay our rent for 1 full year at a new location. We qualified for financing on the autopress of our dreams from Anatol. We secured a private loan to cover the rest of the necessary upgrades. And finally we found the coolest warehouse in all of Maryland.
How cool you ask?
This warehouse is a 150+ year old paper mill in White Hall. If you knew me from my childhood, I grew up in a small factory town - a paper mill town to be precise. Hearing the building owner talk about the old mill might have been the first time in my life I bought into the whole “fate” thing. I mean, c’mon. A paper mill? I’m supposed to be here. Our space is huge and because the owner is renovating the whole building, we get to customize so much of our space. The owner has his woodshop next door and is one of the coolest people you’ll meet. A truly creative person with the ability to actually put big dreams into action. A lot of the property is still vacant during renovations, but there is talk of a cafe, tap room, maker’s market, studio space. If I was sold by the nostalgia of working in a paper mill, Nick was sold on the owner’s vision of this property. Since moving in 2 weeks ago, a lot of construction has happened. We’re still waiting for permits to clear to rebuild one of our walls, replace the stairs, add a 1st floor bathroom, and add a storefront with new glass loading dock doors. And then I can start some massive murals. I’m not going to lie, it is pretty cold and janky in here right now. But hey, the basement shop was also pretty cold and janky, so that’s nothing new.
We also got our brand new Anatol Volt press installed. I’m going to wait and let Nick geek out over the specifics of this machine in a later post. For now, I’ll just say he has described it as “like moving from The Flintstones to The Jetsons”.
Right now feels like the first time back on stage after a long hiatus. Work wise, we’ve been flying under the radar because we simply couldn’t meet the demand. Personally, we’ve been ghosts this past year. Skipping out on family gatherings, friends’ shows, even just having time to sit on the couch and hug our dog. So let this announcement be the metaphorical dusting off of our dancing shoes. We’re working on putting the makeup on the new warehouse, tuning our gear, and navigating all the behind-the-scenes work. We’ll be putting out more content than ever, printing more orders than ever, and hopefully, we’ll actually have free time to catch up with you all at some of our favorite breweries - after we hug the dog of course.
