Salsa Trading Company to close

Owners Edna Hayes and Bruce Needleman retiring to embark on pilgrimage in Spain.|

Salsa Trading Company is closing its doors, marking the end of 30 years as one of Sonoma Valley’s best-known home-furnishings businesses.

Owners Edna Hayes and Bruce Needleman announced their retirement this week and the store would close at the end of November.

“The decision to retire is bittersweet, but we are looking forward to moving to Santa Barbara and closer to our son who resides in Malibu,” Hayes and Needleman said.

Salsa Trading Company, Inc. was able to weather the pandemic and maintain a steady flow of business by offering personalized design consultations by appointment for their clients, said Needleman. The business specializes in furnishing and accessories that meld Spanish Colonial and Early California ranch styles with Native American and Mexican influences. Needleman said their customer base has been largely spread among Wine Country, Marin County and the East Bay.

“To earn loyalty every customer should feel that they are receiving the utmost attention,” said Needleman about their style of customer service. “Sometimes I find myself so engaged in conversation, I feel I am in the comfort of my own living room with friends.”

The couple was inspired to run their own home-furnishings store more than 30 years ago, after deciding to seek a lifestyle change from their demanding corporate jobs. They learned the owner of Salsa, a store they frequented in Larkspur, was planning to retire; they bought the business in 1991 and Salsa Trading Company was born. They opened their Sonoma location in 2000.

Now they’re seeking a change from their longtime careers in the home-lifestyle trade. And they hope to use this time to travel and recharge before pursuing what they refer to as “a yet-to-be-determined second act.”

And that “recharge” will start this spring with a long-awaited 500-mile, month-long walk from France to Spain on the Camino de Santiago Pilgrimage trail.

“You could say walking the Camino de Santiago has been on our bucket list for a long time,” Hayes told the Index-Tribune about the set of trails that draws more than 200,000 travelers a year on an over 200-mile trek to the shrine of St. James the Great in Spain.

She said, in the past, “taking five weeks off from running your own business” wasn’t an option. But, now with a freer schedule, “what a fabulous way to clear your mind, spend time with nature and meet people from all over the world.”

The couple described the trip as a “spiritual” journey that “will begin the next phase of (our) lives.”

“We are looking forward to a new challenge while enjoying a variety of landscapes and conversing with other walkers — or I should say pilgrims — from around the world,” she said.

The couple have just sold the Salsa Trading building at 20490 Broadway and look forward to seeing what becomes of the location they’ve based their operations from the last 20 years.

“We have no idea what the new owner’s plans are for this very special location, but we wish them luck,” said Hayes. “It’s a great corner and the gateway to Sonoma.

Needleman and Hayes expressed gratitude to their clients for their three-decade run as a “brick-and-mortar retail operation in an e-commerce world.”

“We would like to thank our loyal customers all over the Bay Area, but mostly to the local community that embraced our business and family for the past 30 years, our clients have become part of our family, we will miss you Sonoma,” said Needleman.

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