Wren Kitchens has closed its U.S. showrooms, including the site at 3330 Wilkes-Barre Twp Commons in Wilkes-Barre Township, and posted a notice on its website saying, “We regret to inform you that our showrooms and studios are now closed.”
The closure lands with immediate force in Luzerne County, where the Wilkes-Barre Township showroom opened in July 2022 and employed upwards of 30 additional staff members. It also raises questions about the company’s broader footprint in the county, where it ran a manufacturing and corporate operations hub in Hanover Township that employed approximately 300 people, though it was unclear whether those workers were affected.
Wren Manufacturing, the British designer, manufacturer and retailer behind Wren Kitchens, had been expanding rapidly in the U.S. over the past several years. It operated 15 standalone showrooms in the country and maintained other Northeast locations in places including Allentown and Conshohocken, as part of a push that tied retail and manufacturing operations together in Pennsylvania.
That expansion had drawn state backing. In September 2019, the Pennsylvania Department of Community and Economic Development met with Wren Manufacturing as part of an effort to attract international investment, and Pennsylvania offered the company a $1.25 million Pennsylvania First grant, more than $392,000 for workforce training through the WEDnet program and up to $720,000 in Job Creation Tax Credits tied to hiring goals. The company was also identified as potentially eligible for additional support through the state’s Manufacturing Tax Credit program, with the Governor’s Action Team leading the project and the Office of International Business Development helping through its U.K.-based representative.
The shutdown leaves unresolved what comes next for the Pennsylvania operations that anchored Wren’s U.S. push. Wren US Holdings Inc. directs inquiries to a form on its website, all social media have been paused or not updated, and calls to the media contact line now greet callers with a message about the closure.
