Room & Board to expand
By Furniture Today Staff -- Furniture Today, May 3, 2004
MINNEAPOLIS — MINNEAPOLIS— Room & Board is becoming bicoastal.
The home furnishings specialty retailer, based here, has signed a lease for a store in Manhattan's trendy SoHo district. The 30,000-square-foot store is set to open in January 2005, said President John Gabbert.
Several months later, the company plans to open a San Francisco store, its second on the West Coast. "We are close to securing our location," said Gabbert.
The three-level New York store, with a street entrance, will be on Wooster Street, the former home of Knoll.
In January, Room & Board moved its Chicago store from downtown's Chicago Place shopping center to Rush and Ohio streets. "In our new location, formerly the home of Disney Quest, we are on the ground level and have a significant presence. The results have far exceeded our expectations," Gabbert said.
As for the New York and San Francisco stores, Gabbert sees them as a natural extension of the company's shop-from-home business.
"About 25% of our business is from outside our store locations. And New York is the biggest outside market," he said, with San Francisco second. Adding stores in those markets shouldn't be a logistical challenge since it already does so much business in those areas.
"We have much more assortment than we can possibly show in the stores," Gabbert said. The stores also offer merchandise via catalogs.
Room & Board has three stores in metro Chicago and one each in Minneapolis, St. Paul, Denver and Orange County, Calif.
