The new location is only about 1,000 metres away from her original store, but the perseverance, passion and determination to get there felt more like completing a marathon.
On Wednesday (Jan. 11), X-Treme Clothing Boutique owner Lisa Fleischer held a grand opening celebration of her impressive new store in the Tsawwassen Town Centre Mall near Thrifty’s Foods.
Reflecting her Métis heritage, Fleischer invited Tsawwassen First Nation’s Victoria Williams to provide a traditional land acknowledgment, along with a prayer and song, while Coun. Dylan Kruger was also on hand representing the City of Delta as acting mayor.
Fleischer initially opened her women’s clothing and accessories shop back in 2017, on the east side of 56th Street near Petra’s. Nearly five years later, she is thrilled to welcome her customers to the store she envisioned all along. She just didn’t expect all the hurdles along the way, including a pandemic that took its toll on many small independent business owners.
“This was the vision when I first opened, but in order to save costs I moved in and there was already racks in the store, so I just bought them and we just went with it. We didn’t even change the sign,” Fleischer reflected. “There’s been all kinds of sacrifices. I’m a single parent and have a daughter in university.
“During the pandemic it was nearly impossible. We really relied on our base of customers that did support us through online sales because we were closed for so long.
“I'm thinking outside the box by trying new things. I'm not a youngster, but I'm trying to stay current and just fighting for it.”
Fleischer takes pride in her store carrying almost exclusively Canadian-made products while also supporting women’s empowerment movements.
“We're very different from every store in town. We are very unique in we carry a lot of Canadian-made goods. We also support a lot of local small businesses and we have Indigenous jewelery, because we support Indigenous artists,” added Fleischer.
Kruger was impressed at what X-Treme Clothing Boutique adds to the Town Centre Mall.
“It's the small businesses that make up the fabric of the culture of our community. And it's so important supporting local businesses, supporting Delta families and creating jobs for people in Delta in our community,” he said. “We can't be more thrilled to see that and as a council, we want to continue to do everything that we can to support the business community.”