Topdrawer

Topdrawer is an apparel and accessory store. They offer tools and dress-wear meant to “accentuate” daily life. Topdrawer is located in the Coolidge Corner area.
Haley Sherif (she/her), Keyholder:

What are the safety protocols you’ve been following?
Obviously we’re all wearing masks, and we don’t let anyone in the store if it appears they have it below their nose, or if it’s not even on. Every person who walks in is asked to use hand sanitizer up front. That way, if they touch the items in the store, hopefully it lessens the spread of germs. We have little gray bins throughout the store with testing signs in front of them. Our procedure with that is for every pen or small object, or glasses or sunglasses that anyone tries on or touches, they put them in the bin and then we sanitize them after. We have an air purifier that we got pretty early on in the pandemic. We only let five people in the store at a time, and that’s been pretty much across the board for the past year. Once Brookline started to open up its stores––I think we’re at 75 percent for most stores around here––we’ve slowly been allowing more people in. But Topdrawer was very good about making sure its employees were comfortable with that decision first.

How do you think it’s been going?
I think it’s going well. I definitely think people are getting their vaccines, which is making people come out more. That’s really exciting because it’s awesome to have more traffic and more people in the store just looking happy and less nervous.

What would you say to potential customers?
Just make sure that [you realize] when we ask you to put on hand sanitizer, it’s not to be annoying. It’s just to help prevent you from getting anything and us from getting anything. Yes, it’s an extra step and our hands are dry and we’re tired of hearing it, but it’s ultimately really important. The CDC has said it’s a way to prevent COVID.