Downtown SLO jewelry business survived COVID. Now it’s closing after 36 years
Longtime downtown San Luis Obispo shop Serengeti West Fine Jewelers is closing 36 years of doing business in the city.
Serengeti West opened its doors at 951 Monterey St. in the Anderson Hotel Apartments building in April 1993. The business will officially close July 31.
Serengeti West owner Kathleen Dente, 65, started the business as a wholesale jewelry company with her late husband, Vincent “Vince” Dente, in 1985. Now, she said, she’s planning to retire.
“I’m looking forward to having time to myself and being able to travel with my boyfriend,” Kathleen Dente said. “A retail store is very time-consuming.”
Serengeti West offers a selection of rings, diamonds, bracelets, necklaces and earrings.
The shop was shifting to an appointment-only model when the coronavirus pandemic hit, Dente said.
Federal Payment Protection Program (PPP) loans and community support helped Serengeti survive the economic strain of the COVID-19 pandemic.
But with planned building renovations for the commercial space expected within the next couple of years, closing the store was a natural next step, Dente said.
How SLO jewelry business started
Brothers Vincent, Gene and Steven Dente started the Serengeti Company in 1978. In the early days of the business, they traveled back and forth from East Africa, buying tanzanite, ruby, sapphire and tsavorite for sale to gem dealers and jewelry manufacturers.
Dente left her job as a hospital controller in 1984, when she married Vincent, and joined his business.
The couple moved to San Luis Obispo in 1985, establishing a jewelry wholesale business called Rock Soup Trading Company.
They started out in a small, one-room office, later moving to a commercial space in the old Takkens building on Marsh Street. The couple changed the business’s name to Serengeti West in honor of the African gemstone mines that the Dente brothers visited together.
In 1993, they transitioned to the current retail store location at 951 Monterey St.
“Vince loved promoting the store by throwing extravagant events on a shoestring budget,” Kathleen Dente recalled in a news release.
One year, she said, her husband rented out an empty bank building for a black tie event, picked up customers using a friend’s limousine service and showcased high-end jewelry loaned from the American Gem Trade Association.
“It was a fabulous night,” Kathleen Dente said. “Vince’s passion for the business was contagious.”
The couple also sponsored an Avila Beach tennis tournament, now named after Vince Dente: the Avila Bay Classic/Vince Dente Memorial Tennis Tournament.
Kathleen Dente took over sole control of Serengeti West after her husband died due to an aneurysm at the age of 39 in 1996 while attending a convention in Palm Springs.
“At the time of Vince’s untimely passing I was working part time as a speech therapist and I wasn’t the natural salesperson he was,” Dente said in the release. “I was very lucky to find Janett Lightfoot Lumpkin who, with her gemology degree from the Gemological Institute of America, was a perfect fit. Janett has been an integral part of the store for many years and recently moved to Arizona.”
Lumpkin, who served as a store sales associate as well as a gemologist, is helping with the ongoing retirement sale. She’s visiting from Arizona to connect with customers during Serengeti West’s final days.
The business also employed two long-term jewelry designers, Kurt Schiller and Craig A. Boisvert.
“After 28 years, Kurt is still Serengeti West’s jeweler,” she added. “I was blessed to have such a dream team for years. ... In most cases being a good boss means hiring talented people and then getting out of their way.”
According to Kathleen Dente, neither of her grown children — Thomas, a 31-year-old music producer, and Elaina, a 29-year-old architect — were interested in taking over the store when she retires. (She and her husband had another daughter, 3-year-old Erica, who died in 1989 after a complication from strep throat.)
As it prepares to shut its doors, Serengeti is offering sales of 40% to 70% off everything in the store, excluding loose diamonds. No appointments are necessary.
Call 805-546-8706 or visit serengetiwest.com for more information.
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