LOGAN SQUARE — After five years on Milwaukee Avenue, Bucket of Blood Books and Records is facing a move from the Logan Square location that has become “a labor of love.”
Husband and wife co-owners Grant and Jennifer McKee say their lease is up in July for the storefront at 2307 N. Milwaukee Ave., and they’re calling on loyal customers and the local community to help in exchange for Indiegogo rewards set up to benefit the shop.
Husband and wife co-owners Grant and Jennifer McKee say their lease is up in July. [DNAinfo/Darryl Holliday]
Gradual rent increases along with a deterioration of the building has left the space “uninhabitable” for business, Jennifer McKee said, noting that she and her husband have already put a lot of their personal funds into short-term repairs for the shop, which sits on an increasingly popular stretch of Milwaukee Avenue in Logan Square.
“It is simply in our best interest, and the interest of our wonderful customers to move on and move out,” she said. “We want to be able to offer a much better shopping experience for our customers — we really have outgrown this location and need more space.”
But the McKees want to stay in Logan Square, they said, so they’ve begun looking elsewhere in the neighborhood in order to maintain their local following and expand to a larger space.
“We are looking at locations every day and we are only looking in Logan,” Jennifer McKee said. “We have a couple weeks left to make a decision and sign a new lease, so things are getting down to the wire.”
Bucket of Blood’s Indiegogo campaign will run until July 6 and, as of June 16, had reached around 16 percent of its $12,000 goal — the bare minimum needed to secure a new space, McKee said.
“I believe that we can do this-build up a beautiful, bad-ass, awesome space full of the best books and music and people,” she said in a message to the shop’s Facebook fans. “This is truly a labor of love. We do not want to give up on it.”
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