Finishing Touch owners Julio Gaytan, left, and Marcelo Ruano outside their new store in Santa Fe. The Los Alamos community is invited to their grand opening noon to 4 p.m. Saturday at 3675 Cerrillos Road. Photo by Kirsten Laskey/ladailypost.com
The showroom at the new Finishing Touch store in Santa Fe. Photo by Kirsten Laskey/ladailypost.com
By KIRSTEN LASKEY
Los Alamos Daily Post
kirsten@ladailypost.com
SANTA FE — Finishing Touch has branched out and opened a new store in Santa Fe.
The opportunity to grow the local business is due to the support of its Los Alamos customers, owners Julio Gaytan and Marcelo Ruano said.
“Thanks to the support of the community, we decided to bring the same concept to Santa Fe … we really appreciate the community’s support. Los Alamos was definitely a big supporter for this concept, and we are absolutely thankful for that,” Gaytan said.
While the location is new, the Santa Fe store will offer the same products and services as the original store. This includes flooring, window coverings, countertops and cabinets.
The new store at 3675 Cerrillos Road, is huge. The showroom alone is 5,000 square feet. While the concept of the business remains unchanged, there are some new additions to the Santa Fe store. Gaytan pointed out the new store offers a warehouse section where they can stock carpet, tile, vinyl flooring and setting materials.
Also, there is a section that will be exclusively for contractors to purchase materials and tools for their jobs.
Walking through these different areas, Gaytan said this will allow the Finishing Touch to be competitive with the big box stores such as Lowe’s and Home Depot.
The new location had a soft opening, but the grand opening will be celebrated noon to 4 p.m. Saturday. The Santa Fe Chamber of Commerce will hold a ribbon cutting at 12:30 p.m. Gaytan said there will be live entertainment and food.
He added the hope is to see some familiar faces from Los Alamos at the celebration.
“We would like the whole Los Alamos and White Rock community to be able to attend the grand opening,” Gaytan said. “We would love to have everybody here.”
Gaytan said they picked the new store because of its location. He added they spent two months getting the place ready. The floors were redone, the interior and exterior were repainted and new lighting was installed.
He said the decision to grow the business was made toward the end of 2019 when they realized how successful their business’ concept was doing in Los Alamos.
One reason for the business’ success is its focus on the customer, Ruano said.
“We want to make sure the customers are happy with any job we do,” he said.
Ruano added they focus 100 percent on the customers’ needs as well as providing quality products.
Ruano and Gaytan purchased Finishing Touch from former owner Cheryl Sowder in 2017 and the business has been growing ever since. In 2018, the store relocated from #174 to #170 in Central Park Square.
The move not only doubled the amount of space for the store but also expanded its services to include countertops, cabinets and a kitchen showroom. During this time, Gaytan said they have learned a lot about the business.
For instance, he said, “We have to be really diligent on everything we do.”
This is not Ruano and Gaytan’s first business; they also own Santa Fe Flooring, at 1368 Rufina Circle.
“We really felt accomplished when we were able to open this third location,” Gaytan said.
The Finishing Touch in Santa Fe will be open 7:30 a.m. to 6 p.m. Monday through Friday and 9 a.m. to 2 p.m. Saturday.
For more information, call 575.780.5705.
