It will rip the hearts out of crafty types across the Bay Area that the 29-year-old fabric emporium Fabric Outlet has just announced its impending permanent closure, and the place is packed with customers jumping on the 40%-75% off clearance deals.
For the last 29 years, sewing enthusiasts and DIY craftspeople have pinned their hopes on the amazing array of discount and often hard-to-find novelty fabrics in the sprawling basement-level location of Fabric Outlet at Mission and 17th streets. But those days are sadly coming to an end, as Mission Local reported early Friday evening that Fabric Outlet is closing permanently, and now the 40%-75% off clearance deals are already underway.
“With a full and grateful heart, we want to share the bittersweet news that after nearly thirty years of being part of this wonderful community, Fabric Outlet will be closing its doors on Saturday, November 23, 2024,” the shop said in a Friday Instagram post. “This decision has been anything but easy. Serving you over the years—sharing in your creativity, your projects, and your love for fabrics—has truly been one of the great joys of our lives. We’ve been privileged to be a small part of the countless things you’ve dreamed up and brought to life with our fabrics.”
Mission Local adds that the store’s lease is up at the end of 2024, and business has been down since the pandemic. “Every year you’re looking at numbers and thinking, ‘Okay, maybe this is the point it’s going to escalate up.’ And it really hasn’t,” co-owner Gina Cooney told that site. “Every year it’s gone down just a little bit more.”
The clearance sales are 40% to 75% off fabrics and trims, plus 25% off crochet supplies. And you might want to act fast on taking advantage. SFist went by Fabric Outlet on Monday afternoon at 1 pm, and there were easily five dozen customers in line for the cutting tables and cashiers. And 1 pm on a Monday afternoon is not typically prime fabric-buying time.
But Fabric Outlet will live on, online, through the website CaliFabrics, which will continue selling fabrics after the brick-and mortar store’s November 23 closure (that’s the Saturday before Thanksgiving, by the way). Though it may not have the same expansive array of sequined fabrics, marabou boas, zippers, threads, spools, and of course “assorted trinkets.”
There was once a time when the corner on Mission and 17th street was the epicenter of SF’s budget crafter scene, with the gigantic two-story thrift shop Thrift Town at 2101 Mission Street, and Fabric Outlet right next store in the basement level of 2109 Mission Street. Thrift Town closed in 2017, and Fabric Outlet will be gone in less than two months. The big-box Thrift Town location has remained vacant for now seven-and-a-half years, and it's hard to be optimistic that the Fabric Outlet space will get a new tenant for that enormous retail location anytime soon.
But at least Britex Fabrics is still around in Union Square, with the new version of its iconic neon sign.
Related: Britex Fabrics May Move After 64 Years, But Will Remain In SF [SFist]
Images: Joe Kukura, SFist
