Namaste

 Thank you for visiting Kathmandu Boutique online store! I am excited to bring beautiful, one of a kind, faire trade, handmade, women's cottage industry, trendy, colorful, gorgeous, handpicked, comfortable, and affordable merchandise for all ages, and sizes mostly from my home country Nepal, Tibet, India and other Asian countries.  My goal is for everyone to come to the store and have a cultural experience, it won't be just shop and go, instead I would love to form a connection with my customers and have a lasting relationships. 

I am grateful for the ways Kathmandu Boutique has grown and established as a community hub for the past 16 1/2 years in Santa Monica, California. I am inspired to create this business after trying to find beautiful, yet affordable ethnic gifts in stores throughout Los Angeles with no success.  I wanted to bring beautiful handmade colorful clothings, handcrafted items, statues, spiritual merchandise to offer in a bigger scale in California. I wanted to bring little bit of Nepal to the west to introduce my culture thru artifacts, handicraft and thru community gathering where like minded conscious people come together to share and learn our differences, connect and have a meaningful conversations and enjoy a shopping experience, instead of just a shop and go. When I started I did not have enough resources and the merchandise, first I had to start selling at festivals, street fairs, and at farmer’s markets. it was cheaper to rent spaces than the physical space, it was one of the most fun, exciting and very hard work that I have ever done for 7 straight years non stop. What I learn from working every day for 7 years I was able to save enough money to find a physical space to have my store in Santa Monica. This really help my confidence and that anything is possible if you really focus and put your mind to it. At the same time I still could not afford to have the store in a regular shopping mall or in the Main Street areas so I found a place in the busiest thoroughfare call Lincoln Blvd, in the beginning people did not like the location of the store, since it was away from all the main shopping center, standing alone in the streets of Lincoln Blvd a busiest Pacific Hwy 1, was not an ideal one also the surrounding area was little shady what I heard, sometimes ignorance is bliss because I did not know much about the area, the only reason I took the space, it was a standing building that had large street windows and got a pretty good vibe from the place and David, I was sub leasing the building and I was determine to make it work.  Working at the festivals, street fairs, I had build a customers who I had invited to the store, so after few months people start coming thru words of mouth. I am very grateful to all my long time customers who are still here after all these years and supporting thru and thru. My other goal is to provide a best customer service as possible. We make our customer feel acknowledged, cared and at ease.  I want everyone who visits out store to be comfortable and enjoy the process of shopping.  I have this website to give you the same service as possible, since I bring new merchandise every 2 to 3 weeks and it is too hard to put all of them in the website, also I am not bit on online shopping so I would love everyone to come shop at the physical store and have a shopping experience.  I am trying to build a new website for future.   

When I opened my store there were hardly any yoga studios, after like 3 years the all the yoga studio popped up and help my store as well because I was one of the go to shop for all the spiritual needs.  I start hosting a ZERO waste community gathering by cooking a yummy vegan Nepalese Ethnic Food, and with beautiful local artists/musicians, henna artist, tarot readers, healing massage creating a mini festival atmosphere was a huge success, we have had over couple of hundreds of local artists entertain over 100 to 200 community members at one gathering.  Most of my customers have become my friends, supporters, well wishers for that I am eternally grateful. Also people who have attended our gatherings, they have became best friends, soul mates, and soul sisters and soul brothers.   My store is running thru the word of mouth, via recommendations to their friends, family members, neighbors, and people in the street.    

I am eternally grateful for all the support and love I have been getting all these years specially this year during COVID19, while we were closed for 3 1/2 month all the community members near or far have reached out and supported by purchasing via https://www.facebook.com/kathmanduboutique ~ via Instagram https://www.instagram.com/kathmandu_boutique/ ~ Nextdoor ~ Eamils and personal phone calls, everyone kept me busy and kept us alive during the closure, lots of well wishers also purchased our gift card via phone or online, here is the attached gift card that you can buy here and come to the store or use it online when you are ready to shop.  https://squareup.com/gift/2DS0T8DCW8M1V/order I am eternally grateful and thank you all from the bottom of my heart to all the support & love that we are getting while we are partially open our physical store and by going to our online store, unfortunately I don't have all the new merchandise online since I get new ones all the time and it is too expensive and too much work it takes to put it here, but I am doing my best that I am building a new website my dear very talented musician friend who have played many community gatherings is building my brand new website to help me add all the new merchandise, I am beyond blessed, This is a truly a community store in the whole LA area. 

 Enjoy browsing our site and discovering the many magical and unique products we offer from Nepal, India, Tibet and other mystical places! We look forward to further building our global community and if you find yourself in Santa Monica please stop by for some Nepalese tea and see our store in person.  If you have any questions or want to buy any special items you can alway call at (310-396-4036) store. 

Namaste

Dhanyabaad (thank you)

Reena Gauchan