Stormy Leather owner Kathy Williams confirms she is looking to sell the legendary San Francisco sex shop after a 17-year ride.
"It's really just, personally, time for me to make a change," Williams tells AVN On The Net. "I'd been building Stormy Leather for 17 years and it's time for me to do something different." What will that be? Williams isn't saying yet. "I've sort of got a wait and see attitude at the moment," she says.
Opening in 1983, Stormy Leather, south of Market Street in a traditionally leather-oriented neighborhood, as Williams describes it, has become a one-stop sex clothing and toy shop with a variety of product, especially its own leather line.
"We specialize in erotic leather for women, leather corsets a specialty, but we do other leather lingerie," Williams says. "And we carry a broad range of toys; we're known, in fact, particularly for a range of dildo harnesses."
The store had never been a failure, she says, but it came into its own for good following a remodeling in 1994.
"Basically," she says, "we're the antithesis of a dirty book store, if you like. It's a very pleasant environment, and our staff is extremely helpful, we pride ourselves on customer service. You get people coming in who haven't had much experience with the products and are rather shy about it."
Williams regrets only that she couldn't open Stormy Leather stores in New York, Los Angeles, and other large U.S. cities. "I hope whoever buys the business will move on and do just that," she says. "I just hadn't found the time."
Williams isn't certain when a deal will be done. "We have interested parties," she says, "but the check's not in the mail yet."
