I started Westmere in 1990 for one reason: my family.

Not to build a brand. Not to become a businessman. I started this because I needed to provide. And for thirty-five years, it did exactly that.

Then COVID hit.

The store went silent overnight. No customers. No footfall. Nothing. I had to build a website, taught myself, figured it out, so men could still get the gear I had been choosing by hand for decades. I thought the internet would save us.

It didn't. Not at first.

For months, nobody came. The website sat empty. I kept going because I didn't know what else to do. The bills piled up. I looked at everything I had built over thirty-five years and thought: this might be it.

2024 almost finished what COVID started.

But then something happened. People found us. Shared our story. Ordered, not because we were the biggest, or the cheapest, but because they believed in what we were doing.

A man choosing gear by hand to keep his family together.

We're still here because of you.

Every order that comes in keeps this going. Keeps this family whole. I don't take that lightly. Not for a single day.

— James, Westmere New York