Big Pony's going out to pasture

Come experience the new and improved balloon ceiling! Looks cute as hell 💕 great selfie opportunity #cottoncandy #bubblegum #cute #balloons #pop

A post shared by BIG PONY•[email protected] (@bigponyhfx) on Sep 4, 2016 at 7:39am PDT

It’s Instagram official: On Tuesday night, Big Pony announced its plans to close by mid-April.

“This has been a dream of both of ours,” says Lindsay Stewart, who co-owns the store with Emily Ross. “We met a lot of people, we made a lot of friends, lots of connections in the city—but I think we’re kind of just excited to start new adventures.”

The store originally opened on Brenton Street in 2013, moving its stocks of secondhand clothing and locally-made odds and ends to Gottingen Street less than two years later. Looking back, Stewart says many of her best memories were “after hours” events such as Christmas pop-ups and the North by Night markets.

“Any chance we got to open up the space to the community and get to do something special.”

While the store may be closing its doors, Stewart stresses that customers shouldn’t stop following them on social media, as they have plenty of future happenings their sleeves.

“Our favourite part of the store was organizing craft markets and doing pop-ups,” she says. “So like, going to unconventional spaces or music festivals and doing sales there—at this point, we’ve got it down to a science. It’s easy for us and it’s way more fun.”

Those are the kinds of things Pony fans can expect going forward.

“We don’t want to let people down, but we want to let people know that we’re excited for the next phase of Big Pony, and we’re excited for the next phase of Lindsay and Emily, honestly.”