In Pursuit Parking The ‘Pink Truck’, Opening Uptown Storefront

A mobile boutique in New Brunswick will be mostly stationary for the foreseeable future — but its customers will still be able to shop at its new brick and mortar location.

In Pursuit, a popular boutique selling clothing, accessories and giftware out of a giant pink truck, will be staying off the road this season but will be serving customers out of its storefront at 101 Prince William Street in uptown Saint John.

The move to brick and mortar will actually be an expansion for the businesses, allowing room for more inventory. But it wasn’t the type of expansion owner Dominique Leger had planned for.

Over the last few years, she had been working on getting a second truck specifically for gift and stationery items. She even held a successful Kickstarter campaign to fund the second truck.

But the plans came to a halt with COVID-19.

“The world got shut down in such a way that now we’re no longer really able to be in an enclosed space with anybody else. The truck is built so that you are in an enclosed space. That’s kind of the charm of the truck in a way,” says Leger. “For most people, it was cute and cozy and it really created this sense of community inside the truck that now is almost against the law.”

Though the truck could technically still operate, it would be limited to one customer at a time, making the business model no longer feasible

“I had to forget the plans for the second truck, just simply because there is no way to properly social distance inside 18 square feet,” says Leger. “I’d have to allow maximum one person at a time and I don’t want to be telling people what to do and not do all the time. That doesn’t sound like a fun time to me.”

So to keep the business going and to give customers the more inventory they’ve been craving, Leger has leased 101 Prince William Street, just half a block away from where the pink truck would normally park during its stops uptown.

“I’m just responding to the current state of the world and I want to ensure the safety of customers, staff, and myself and anybody who comes in contact with any of us. This is really my only way to do it besides doing strictly online like I have been doing,” she says.

“That’s okay to a point, but my favourite part of this business is the community building and online doesn’t allow for any of that.”

Leger says the In Pursuit storefront will have all the apparel and products that would be carried on the truck, just more of it.

“I always tell people who come on the truck that it’s exactly the same as boutique except that it’s in a truck instead of building,” she says. “In this case, it’s going to be exactly the same as the truck, except that it’s in the building instead of on four wheels.”

Leger doesn’t have an exact opening date but expects to open the store either the second or third week of June, as long as the province remains in the yellow phase.

The future is uncertain, but Leger still plans to eventually get that second tuck once it’s safe for the boutique to hit the road once again. But when that time comes, the plan is to keep the storefront permanently as a company headquarters.

“So that on the days where the trucks travel to Harvest Jazz & Blues in Fredericton, there’s still an In Pursuit presence in town,” says Leger. “That also allows the trucks to travel far and wide beyond where I’ve been able to go.”

Though the storefront is an exciting announcement for In Pursuit’s customers, it was never part of Leger’s business plan. Like many businesses who are now pivoting, it was a result of having to adapt to what COVID-19 has done to everyday life.

“Right now, I have to save my business. I want to save my business because I want to continue to serve the community and be out there and make a difference and an impact and do something while I’m here,” says Leger. “We are all really trying to do the best we can with what we have.”

Cherise Letson is the associate editor of Huddle, an Acadia Broadcasting content partner.