Wren Kitchens abruptly shut down its U.S. operations on Thursday afternoon, locking customers out of showrooms and leaving more than three dozen employees out of work with little warning. Former staff said the UK-based company delivered the news on a Zoom call around 3 p.m. Thursday, and by 4 p.m. the doors at the Newington showroom were locked.
For Melissa Dethlefsen, the closure landed just as she was expecting a $23,000 order of cabinets and countertops to arrive next Wednesday. She said she learned late Thursday night from her contractor that Wren had shut down, after already paying by debit card and check. “As a family of five, it’s been hard to live in one room essentially. S to be so close and then to have it ripped away, is it’s like devastating,” she said.
The shutdown hit workers just as hard. Anes Hodzic, who managed the Newington showroom, said no one received pink slips or any notice before the closure. “No one got any pink slips. No one got anything. Once they walked out of the offices, all the computers went black, black screens,” he said. Hodzic said he got his last paycheck on Friday and then learned he no longer had insurance. “We got nothing regarding customers, regarding some sort of severance for the employees, nothing really,” he said.
Wren Kitchens did not respond to calls or emails from WFSB, and its website directed customers to fill out a form. That left people with orders in progress trying to figure out whether they will ever see their cabinets, countertops or money again. Dethlefsen said she spoke with someone in the UK offices on Friday morning, and was told staff had been instructed to expect calls from the United States, not to speak to the press and to take customers’ information. “He said that they had been told to be prepared for phone calls from the United States, not to speak to anybody from the press and to just take our information. And he was like; I don’t know what to tell you,” she said.
The company’s sudden exit has left customers out of tens of thousands of dollars and employees with no clear answer on what comes next. Hodzic said he wanted the public attention to force a response. “I wanted to talk to you guys because I feel like the media and the public will put a little pressure on them to make sure these people get their money back,” he said. Dethlefsen was blunter: “Not that I want to be spiteful, but like somebody has to be held accountable for this,” she said.