“It’s the Staff Who Never Let Me Let Go”: BlockParty WeHo Is Ready for What’s Next

When a local blog ran with a “closing” graphic stamped across its headline, the kind usually reserved for businesses shuttering for good, readers assumed the worst about BlockParty WeHo. Founder Larry Block says that’s not what the sign said. The sign always said a re-open date to be announced. Never a “going out of business” sign. It’s not what happened then. It’s not what’s happening now.

“I wish everybody just had taken the signs at face value,” he said.

Now Block is ready to talk about what’s actually happening at 8853 Santa Monica Boulevard, and it’s a lot more interesting than a closing. The lease through 2029 is too valuable. The corner on Santa Monica is too good. “It’s our job to use that location and adapt to the business.”

What BlockParty’s actually been doing is a gut renovation of a 120-year-old building that had genuinely fallen apart. The ceiling in the upstairs office caved in. Plaster fell on staff. The building had water damage from the rains to deal with, structural repairs to make. Floors throughout the store were cracked concrete, broken in spots. Lighting had failed. The wood was rotting out. All of it needing to be fixed. 

“Moving forward required a lot of tenant improvements to this building,” Block said. “When you start going, you just got to get it all done.”

He went to the landlord. They shook hands on a package of improvements. New floors are going in around the 15th. New lighting comes next week. Custom track fixtures, chandeliers, rainbow lighting throughout, all of it’s coming. The store stayed open through most of it, running irregular hours around the construction. Block notes the store will be closed March 16-18th for prep and installation of the new floors. 

Consecutive quarters of year-over-year declines were a sign a new path was needed. The store stayed a successful operation through all of it, still ranking as a top account for many vendors, but rising wages, rising rent, and the collapse in daytime foot traffic after West Hollywood’s crime wave got bad. All of it hit the margins. Things needed to change. Including the problems Block and every small business owner along the Rainbow strip had been living with for far too long. 

The situation outside the front door had become untenable — people in mental health crisis threatening staff, unlicensed food vendors blocking the entrance, and a homelessness problem the City struggled to address. Block and fellow business owners had been raising the same complaints for months and felt the City wasn’t listening. The sign calling out the City’s hands-off policy was his way of making sure they did. KTLA Channel 5 took notice and interviewed him. The City took notice too. 

The clean sweep sale turned out to be the reset he needed. Nearly 500 jackets moved in three weeks. It also taught him something. The off-price model, fast turns, value pricing, volume over margin, works. That lesson is going directly into what the new BlockParty looks like.

“I didn’t realize how incredible the last two months would be,” Block said. “It gave us the opportunity to really move forward from a clean slate.

Andrew Christian

BlockParty’s vendor model runs on partnerships, not speculation. Vendors own their walls, guarantee product margins, and commit to fast replenishment. Block guarantees a base dollar amount. It’s a handshake business. Always has been.

Andrew Christian, which Block described as the biggest gay fashion supplier in the nation, folded. What came out of it connects back to something Block started decades ago. YMLA, his own brand, helped bring clubwear to queer culture. In the 1990s, YMLA landed on the covers of many magazines for its looks, including Newsweek and Time. It’s been the store’s private label backbone ever since.

When Chris Yoo, Andrew Christian’s former director of sales, called Block looking for a way forward, Block saw something he recognized. Yoo had the factories. Yoo knew how to do it. Block told him to go do it, use the YMLA label, and he’d back him.

“I was you once,” Block told him. “I’ll put you in business.”

It’s the same shot Block got years ago from the late Shirley Fong, who gave him a factory partnership that made YMLA possible in the first place. Yoo took the collection to the MAGIC trade show and worked out of a hotel room. Orders came in from accounts across the country. The collection hits shelves in June or July, with BlockParty as the WeHo hub and distribution already reaching nationwide. 

New colors, new feel, new store

The merchandise is getting a serious overhaul too. Block’s picked up two of what he calls the hottest junior women’s vendors in the market right now. The women’s section is being highlighted properly this time. The customer he’s dressing isn’t only one type. It’s the trans customer, the twink customer, the young gay guy who wants something that sparkles. BlockParty has always been about party wear and gym wear, the going-out stuff, the club look. That part isn’t changing. It’s just getting sharper and wider.

Block surveyed employees and a close circle of friends before landing on the color direction. The exterior rainbow, the store’s signature for years, is coming down. The flag colors have shifted and the old rainbow reads as dated now. What’s replacing it draws out the historic reds and coppers in the surrounding brick through a special paint process. Block’s also still researching a second concept that could be something entirely different.

Inside, the primary color driver is navy blue. He looked it up. In queer symbolism, navy stands for stability and resilience. It felt right.

Hot pink stays in certain areas, balanced against a charcoal motif to work with the new smoky gray floors. Counters and fixtures come in over the next few weeks.

The adult department is expanding with a different philosophy than what’s out there. Basic necessities have been marked up triple or quadruple at neighboring stores for years. Block’s treating them like mainstream items, fair markup, real pricing, no Beverly Hills premium just because the address says so.

There’s a food component coming too. BlockParty’s permit allows up to 350 square feet for food and edibles. Block’s working out what that looks like, coffee, snacks, things that don’t require a full kitchen buildout. And the City has offered him a shot at an encroachment permit for outdoor tables and chairs. A sidewalk seating area right on Santa Monica Boulevard, a real gathering spot out front. It was attempted before and stalled. Block thinks this time it might actually happen, and with a lesbian bar opening down the street and a sophisticated new venue going in next door, the block is changing fast. He wants BlockParty ready for all of it. Block’s expecting 75% of the store fully stocked and running by April 1st.

What’s changed outside

The AIDS memorial tree out front was coated in layers of black grease from the hot dog vendor cooking residue, the rocks around it barely visible. Block says it was like a desecration. 

The City’s been out every week scrubbing it. Another layer comes off each time.

“Week by week the City is chipping away at the hot dog grease and restoring our public space,” he said.

Vendors have been moved out of the immediate storefront. A security post at the entrance, now about six weeks in, has largely handled the homeless situation. Progress, though Block’s clear the City still has more work to do for small businesses trying to hold on along this corridor.

The people who kept it going

Block’s heard the whispers and read the comments that going after the vendor situation is about something other than his business. He doesn’t just reject it. He’s offended by it. His staff has reflected the diversity of the West Hollywood community for the store’s entire sixteen-year run. Several employees have been there five, six, seven years, never letting go even when the path forward wasn’t clear.

The store making it through, Block said, wasn’t him.

“It’s the staff who never let me let go, who had confidence and faith.” He told them in an email, “Hey guys, it’s going to be turbulent… but trust me to land the plane safely.”

It took more than faith. It took a landlord willing to put money into a building that needed it. It took the City stepping up on security and public space. It took a new vision for what the store could become, and everybody buying into it at once.

“We needed a buy-in,” he said. “Security, tenant improvements, and a new vision for the future. I think we found it.”

Still here. Still open. Still BlockParty.

Ask him what BlockParty means to this city: Ground zero, he said. The pulse of the city. The place that runs on the City’s calendar, pivoting from St. Patrick’s Day gear to Pride to Halloween to cruise season without a beat missed. The “I Love WeHo” shirts council members wear to every City function? BlockParty made them. When COVID hit, Block ran masks door to door. His was the only store that had them. When monkeypox shots were impossible to find anywhere, BlockParty had them and people lined up down the block. Every bar employee on the strip, every business owner nearby, comes here when they need something.

“It’s like the Cheers of the middle of the city,” he said. “It’s the place everybody goes, we’re open to everyone, day and night.”

Customers came in daily during the renovation just to say they were glad the store was still there. Ten times a day, Block said. It was universal. It was overwhelming. It helped him get through.

“The love that we got over the past couple of months is beyond unbelievable,” Block said. “Every employee from every one of these bars comes to us. Every owner. Where do I go? It’s always been us. It makes me choke up.”

So they stay and turn the page. The new navy blue walls going up inside BlockParty WeHo stand for resilience. For this store, this community, this town — that fits.​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​

And that’s not all. There’s one question everybody in West Hollywood keeps asking Larry Block. He answered it. That’s tomorrow. Part 2 of this interview drops Wednesday morning 6a.

Editor’s Note: Larry Block is a co-owner and publisher of WEHOonline. He was interviewed for this story and had no editorial involvement in its preparation and did not review it prior to publication.