I lived across the street from their Brooklyn store from when it opened in 2018 to when it closed last winter (in anticipation of "relaunching" for the new glasses they were planning this year).

They rented an expensive glassy corner storefront ($50k/month I heard at the time) and built it out to a very high standard, but there was never anyone inside shopping. The store employees just stood around looking at their phones all day looking super bored.

I also found it bizarre that they didn't seem to be making any effort to use the space as a marketing tool beyond it's mere presence...I anticipated when they opened that there would be VIP/media/influencer events on a regular basis, but they seemingly just opened in the mornings and closed at night. Having been involved in opening some retail stores, "if you build it they will come" was certainly never part of our strategy.

There never seemed to be any attempt to attract customers or make the store more inviting at all...they didn't even have a listing on Google Maps for months after they opened. Seeing this stagnant shop every single day I spent a lot of time thinking about what must be going on inside this outwardly "promising startup" to make such an investment only to let it languish. Seems like my suspicions weren't misplaced!