"My mother and I were very frustrated," said Kim Birks, who co-owns the company with her mother, Ann. Father Barrie Birks bequeathed the company to Kim and his wife after he died in 2002. "We couldn't turn the corner. We kept hoping we had reached the bottom and we were moving upward, but the bottom kept moving lower."

The store has been losing up to $240,000 a week.

The Birks family sits outside their front steps in Montreal in spring of 2002. From the left sits Ann, Kim, dog Sushi, and Barrie Birks.