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60 Years of Upholstery with J. Jammal
3 Plays1 year ago
A truly great conversation with our buddy Jim of J. Jammal Upholstery out of Jersey City, NJ.
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Greene Street Joinery is a custom design & build shop located in Monmouth County, New Jersey. We build multigenerational furniture with an eco-friendly and sustainable mindset.
Inspired and guided by the ideals of the Arts and Crafts movement, we believe in the use of traditional craftsmanship and simple, well-proportioned forms; sustainability and ethical practices; and importantly, taking pleasure in our work as craftsmen to create quality pieces of enduring value.
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Transcript
Sponsorship and Guest Introduction
00:00:01
Speaker
The American Craftsman Podcast is sponsored by Hayfla. Hayfla offers a wide range of products and solutions for the woodworking and furniture making industries. From hinges and drawer slides to connectors and dowels, sandpaper, wood glue, shop parts, and everything in between. Exclusive product lines such as looks, LED lighting, and Slido door hardware ensure that every project you create is built to last. Learn more at hayfla.com.
00:00:48
Speaker
All right. Welcome to the show. Yeah. It's a good one today. It's always, it's always a little funny, um, sitting through the intro when there's a guest on who hasn't been on the show. There's all this anticipation like, okay, when's it going to start? Yeah. We got a special, special guest today. Yeah. And joined by our buddy, Jim of, uh, Jim Jamal of Jamal upholstery.
00:01:13
Speaker
Thank you guys for having me. I appreciate you being on. We're glad to have you. Yes, we started talking about this.
The 43-Foot Banquette Project
00:01:21
Speaker
It must have been what? Was that a month ago we were dropping off those banquets? Yeah. I was flirting with it. Yeah. Time flies. So yeah, we were dropping off. I think we had probably talked about it. Dropping off that 43 foot banquette. 43 foot and one quarter inch. Yeah.
00:01:43
Speaker
from what they say, but I honestly think it was 43 on a dot. From my measurements, it was 86 each one, but they look so good from three months, four months process finally today, just finished it out. So it looks really, really good. I can't wait to get some pictures and send those over to you guys.
00:02:03
Speaker
Yeah, Jim does amazing work. We're really happy to have been able to work with him. And we're saving up our pennies because we want to have some Jim Jamal work in our homes. I definitely appreciate that.
00:02:19
Speaker
Likewise, I mean, just finding a skilled carpenter to, you know, help on the journey of some of our like neater projects, especially the tradesmen can't afford their own work. Isn't it crazy? I always tell customers I just vicariously live through them. Yeah. You know, just ship it off and
00:02:39
Speaker
my mother always would tell me, the second generation owners, you remember the furniture, not the person, you know, that's how you always but, you know, it's, it's a neat process.
Jim Jamal's Family Journey
00:02:52
Speaker
I was born into the trade. 60 years now in Jersey City, dating back over 100 in the Middle East. Yeah, that's pretty impressive. And it's funny,
00:03:06
Speaker
We came to or my grandparents came to this country because my great uncle, he had an upholstery shop in Jersey City and told my grandmother, his sister, you know, hey, come on, you got to, you know, you'll make a ton of money. My dad still says this today. He said, Jim, they told us the streets were gold, you know, paved and gold. Yeah.
00:03:29
Speaker
And he came here and he was so surprised. But we've squandered it all. So what year did they come over? So literally my uncle told them in sixty two, sixty three, they came over one by one, as my dad would say, on the banana boat. Yes. But yeah, he opened a business right then and there.
00:03:50
Speaker
Yeah, I see on the shirt established in 1963. Aren't they beautiful shirts? Yeah, we almost wore mine today. Yeah, we sport them. It's in the rotation. It's in that five shirt rotation. Definitely. That's what you got. Honestly, I'm waiting for my green street shirt. Yeah, we got to get more. We got to get more.
00:04:06
Speaker
Oh man. But no, it's been a neat process. My grandfather didn't really care about the business. He was more into the real estate side of the American dream, where he bought up all of what's now known as Indian Square in Jersey City.
00:04:25
Speaker
And my father would go around collecting the rent and it'd take him a day and a half, two days, because, you know, that's what he did. Hey, that, you know, gratefully made his dream happen.
Upholstery Business Legacy
00:04:38
Speaker
My father took a different role and saw the possibilities that, you know, we see now that my business is, I mean, we are a mom and pop shop, but we do so many just big, exciting projects, like with you guys, just that 43 foot long pancit.
00:04:54
Speaker
and the 200 inch long banquette and the sister restaurant. But also in technology companies like I don't know if I'm able to say Nike Google or copyright infringement or whatever the hell it is. Come, come at us. But yeah, it's neat. You just you meet, you know, a lot of interesting people like we were connected by Jacqueline Douglas. I don't know how long it was. It feels like forever. Honestly, I'm trying to think of what that first project was.
00:05:24
Speaker
For me with Jacqueline, it was Solaya. I think that's the first process we did with them. Yeah, those four chaise lounges. The four chaise lounges and then we did the bankhead seating.
00:05:37
Speaker
in the co-working or something. Yeah. Jacqueline didn't use us for that. She used somebody else. Oh boy. Yeah. Well, at least she was honest, right? Yeah. She didn't tell us. She just didn't tell us. She just omitted that we didn't get that. If you're listening, Jacqueline, as long as you're getting a, you know, a piece, my father said, that's all you need to survive. We just need a slice of the pie.
00:06:00
Speaker
Yeah.
Business Challenges
00:06:01
Speaker
And I mean, just I'm sure like with you, like business is always just a roller coaster. You know, one day you'll have designers, you know, chomping at you for a quote, timeline and everything or whoever. And then two years later, you'll hear back after that, which is always a fun experience. It's always feast or famine.
00:06:23
Speaker
And it's like you get almost to the finish line on all these jobs. And you know, because you've given us prices on a bunch of stuff, those sectionals that that we were talking about, you get to like, you know, it's like, OK, send the money and it's like they're gone. They disappear.
00:06:39
Speaker
I've had clients that are like, oh, you need to pick this up right away. But can you hold on to it for three, four months? And I'm like, you know, you're crazy. If you've seen our shop, obviously they would know. I'm laughing because your shop is it's like something out of central casting, you know, if they wanted to like create like an an overworked overcrowded, like almost like a bizarre
00:07:07
Speaker
with two A's, bizarre kind of experience. It's definitely a diamond in the rough, but it's always a game of furniture Tetris every day. We're always moving around stuff. My parents' house has a great storage unit, so that's always fun. But yeah, we make it work. I think it's about 70 foot by
00:07:33
Speaker
Yeah. Yeah. I was trying to, because we were talking to John, John Piers was here a little while ago and he knew you were coming on and we're like, yeah, we're like, you can almost like touch either wall. Like if you spread your, if I, you know, if I was a little taller. It's a real diamond in a rough. A lot of customers actually come to us and they're like, you know, where are we located? We don't, we, we have no idea. And when you walk in, you're kind of just like, what the hell is this place? Is it a junk shop or what?
00:08:00
Speaker
No, it doesn't look it looks like an upholstery shop, but it's a little disheveled. Let's control chaos because I mean, if you had seen its chaos in the shop right now, but if you had seen the old shop, same thing, you know, we're in a 24 by 36 with all these big machines and just crammed in there, you know, stuff stacked on top of other stuff. And every square inch of wall is covered with, you know, stuff hanging.
00:08:26
Speaker
You got to use every inch you got, honestly. And that's what I've been learning. It's it's wild. My dad used to have more cabinets and everything else in between. And we've thrown out tables and everything else. And I'm still just like, how the heck is he getting sofas in here? We just had a recent job we did. You guys saw at the St. Peter's University circular. Yeah, that's very cool. Yeah. Holy moly. Trying to get those into the shop was not easy. So I had to cut those in half.
00:08:55
Speaker
And that, I mean, that's more than just like upholstery than you think in the traditional sense. Like you guys had to go there, demo these things, bring them back. You had to cut them to get them inside and then you have to go and put it back together. You know, it's not like you're just, oh, let's just do the upholstery. I mean, you have to do all those other aspects of the job.
Craftsmanship and Furniture Trends
00:09:16
Speaker
The before and afters are pretty amazing.
00:09:18
Speaker
Isn't it crazy? That's, you know, that's, I think that's what everybody sees. And that's what everybody's amazed by, but at the same time, just like you give a personal price. And, you know, some people have a heart attack and don't understand what that middle process is, me having to, you know, de-stall a specific part or just picking up just logistically wise, and realistically,
00:09:44
Speaker
You know, there's three or four of us at a given day and just trying to scratch out a living. Yeah, honestly, it's it's a hustle, you know, it's a grind. And I watched my dad do it since I was as young as I can remember and always kind of idolized my dad for doing what he did. My dad had
00:10:06
Speaker
30 odd jobs in his life, hairstylist, Wall Street, pencil factory and his English accent. Kind of funny. It kind of looks like a Colombian drug lord. He's got all these rings and gold, you know, necklaces on. He's got his little hat in his cane. So British accent. Yeah, it's good. It's good. Be good for TV. I name any producers out there.
00:10:31
Speaker
Yeah, my I told you this before, but my two uncles had an upholstery shop in Brooklyn on Evan. Yes, that was back when it was for, you know, pneumatics and everything was the mouthful attacks with the magnetic hammer. You know, it's it's it's crazy to me because, you know, the industry has changed so much since, you know, just the technology has advanced. It hasn't advanced much, honestly, since that that staple gun
00:11:01
Speaker
air pressure but we still do a couple traditional pieces here and there but I would say it's less than like
00:11:10
Speaker
three to five a year. It's very limited, but you know, a lot of people don't want to pay more. You know, obviously it takes longer. Like you said, tacking hammer, you know. Those are lifetime pieces though, you know, the frames and everything. You just reupholster. That's how I grew up. No, of course. You know, that you would just reupholster the piece that was already in the house.
00:11:34
Speaker
And today it's a throwaway furniture, unfortunately. My father would tell me he would see upholstery or reupholstering commercials on TV. And I can't fathom that. You know, it's a it's such a niche, you know, thing now. Same as like carpentry, honestly. And.
00:11:54
Speaker
I mean, my father would tell me about 40 to 50 guys doing upholstery in Jersey City alone when he was in his prime and I, you know, that you can't fathom either. I mean, it's basically just been us since, I don't know, for the last decade or so. COVID wasn't kind to a lot of the older upholsterers in our area. Yeah, I can imagine. You guys did a Duncan Fife not too long ago, right?
00:12:17
Speaker
Yeah. Yeah. We've we did a Duncan Fife and it was beautiful. We did. Wow. We actually did a couple actually. It was the green one we did. I don't know if that's when you're talking about. We had to. We had to. Had like claw feet I think.
00:12:32
Speaker
Yeah, so we had to fix and repair one of the legs. We actually like replace part with not as a great leg, but we did our little handyman craftsman work. I'm sure you guys could have done a little better, but whatever the budget calls were, you know, no, yeah, it was a sentimental piece. Like Rob was saying, I mean, realistically,
00:12:53
Speaker
that's what you did back in the day. You buy your furniture reupholstered. And it's really neat to me that I've done furniture that my grandfather's reupholstered, that my father's reupholstered, and that I've reupholstered now and that those pieces of furniture has actually like just followed me with or followed in their generations as well as with me. So kind of neat and
00:13:17
Speaker
we'll find like old like platform like tape or not tape but tickets with like Jamal upholstery on it from like way back in the day. That's cool. Yeah, my grandfather would do the upholstery himself. My grandmother would so yes, my mother was the seamstress. Okay. And my dad was the same stuff. It's a job getter.
00:13:38
Speaker
immigrants taken to the trades, you know, and I remember growing up and it's funny now because like my mom would make drapes out of the same material of that we would get the furniture. Everything's all coordinated.
00:13:53
Speaker
We need some chairs with this pattern on it. Yeah, the 70s called. Yes. I love it. Jacqueline was calling this the porn room, like the 719. Okay. I think that's why the listenership was so good on that episode. We had our first female guest and she was, she did not disappoint.
00:14:13
Speaker
Well, I listened to a good amount of that and that was a good episode. Yeah. A lot of people really liked it. Yeah. Yeah. So if you're listening and you want to hear from more interior designers, let us know because we have a couple that we could at least one of one other. Yeah. Top of our head.
00:14:30
Speaker
And then we could get in. It's always very neat how both of our industries are kind of intertwined. Kind of just blending in and dipping in different areas, whether it be pancakes, you know, or I mean, just even weirder stuff that we've built, like the chaises for Solaya. Capsule shaped sofa.
00:14:51
Speaker
Oh, yeah, that was that was cool. That was really cool. And then that that mini furniture maker. Oh, yeah. That was insane. She recreated that in like she makes like miniature furniture for I guess like doll houses and stuff. I don't even know. I mean, it looks expensive. Yeah. But it seems probably more than we got. Right.
00:15:11
Speaker
It seems like she's making she's making the money with that that modular sofa. So good for her. Yeah. You know, it looks great. Oh, we did the sectional that had the wood like table thing. Oh, yeah. Oh, man. I'm not sure if they still have that if they. Oh, God. That was a ill conceived. It was a long process. Yeah. You know what I like is that we build these sort of plywood caucuses and then they go to you.
00:15:40
Speaker
And you pull like those that Chan, I didn't know what channel backs were. I mean, I'd seen them. I didn't know what it was called or anything, but you do all this work on it and you can't really imagine that it's just this bear caucus underneath.
00:15:54
Speaker
Uh, for me, it's kind of funny. Well, not funny, I guess, because every day this is what I've seen my whole life. You know, like this is, oh, it's another day. You know, we're going to tough the hundred foot long wall or we're going to channel a 43 foot long bank. And, uh, you know, I'm very appreciative of the people I have around me.
00:16:14
Speaker
that surrounded me in the business. Roberto's been with my family for 18 years now, being a big part of the business. Wow. He seems like a cool dude. Yeah, he's known me since I was 15. So, you know, we've been together forever. Robert's got about 40 years of experience. Another gentleman who works for us, Jonathan, he's got about 50 years experience.
00:16:37
Speaker
in Honduras, they give you the tools, like as soon as you can start functioning with tools, basically seven, eight years old. And when he was, I think, 12 years old, he cut off his finger. But the guy with a saw, but he's still doing upholstery. You know, he's he works with me. He's in a design stop in the city as well. And just finding people like that want, well, number one, have the passion and number two,
00:17:07
Speaker
Are willing to work a little harder for you know, but you have to really love what you do and I've been running
Upholstery Skills and Broadway Projects
00:17:16
Speaker
this business now five years and Maybe 50 guys I've run through and you know, they tell you oh, you know I can do this I can cut I can sew and I
00:17:27
Speaker
you know, give you the whole spiel and then your hundred year old song machine's broken. So never broke before, but it's broken now. Isn't that crazy? So then you got to, you know, you're just you're down another like, you're just like you went through this process of trying to like teach this other person, you wasted another couple of weeks and it's just so, so hard. But, you know, like I said, just very fortunate with the people surrounded in the business and
00:17:54
Speaker
because we've been so busy, I've been able to take a step back, um, in the past like years. So where I'm doing more of the face of the business, social media. Um, if you want, follow us at Jamal upholstery. Yeah. Yeah. Plug away. Definitely. Yeah. Um, but
00:18:12
Speaker
It's I'm very blessed and fortunate because like I said, my grandfather is more into the real estate side of it. My father really expanded the business to what it is to include, like you said, like Broadway plays. You know, I was going to mention that before you guys did some stuff for Broadway. Yeah, usually you do about three to five plays a year. We haven't done any this year, but last year we did the piano lesson with Samuel L. Jackson.
00:18:39
Speaker
We did Otis with, oh God, Vanessa Williams. And then we also did Pretty Woman. That was a traveling show and it went all over the country.
00:18:54
Speaker
Um, but yeah, so we used to work with a scenery company or we still do, I should say, based in Jersey city. Um, and they would, you know, do all our bankettes and everything. And they got a little too big and I needed to find another car printer and it's, uh, it took me a year and a half, but oh man, thank you, Jacqueline for that plug. We've enjoyed it. You know, it's a, it's a nice break from what we typically do, you know, where it's,
00:19:24
Speaker
We still want to build it really nice, but it's like it's not so You're not gonna end up really seeing anything that we do. So it's like there's a little more It's a little more carefree of a build, you know less stressful for sure
00:19:38
Speaker
Yeah. Don't have to wipe off every single bit of glue. Yeah. Yeah. Oh, man. You can stay. Yeah. But some staples. Well, realistically, you're giving me like a carcass and we just have to dress her up. And I'm always I mean, I shouldn't say I'm not amazed by some of the stuff we do. I mean, I was.
00:19:57
Speaker
I mean, I'm super passionate about the business and just so proud of being able to say like, you know, hey, 43 foot long bank. Yeah. Yeah. And like, that's I don't think I've ever made a bank that long before. And but we've had actually that was our second bank or third bank build.
00:20:15
Speaker
Those U-shaped ones where they were, those were cool. That was in my own backup. So that was like a tech Google company. Those things were huge. Did they ever put the plane inside? Yeah. Oh my God. It's freaking huge. Just imagine a legit plane inside a building, like the interior of a plane with like a cocktail bar in it. And it's like, that's going to be your closing room. That's what they made.
00:20:43
Speaker
That's pretty cool. You're looking at our cocktail bar right there. Espresso. You got to get some scotch over there. We got a bottle of Prosecco down there. Oh, boy. That Brian, our machinery salesman, brought it to us when we bought that ungodly expensive edge bander out there. I can only imagine you have a lot more expensive tools than I have in my shop. I don't even want to ask how much you've sunk in the tools in the test.
00:21:13
Speaker
It's been an expensive seven months. But you did it. Yeah. So that's that's credit to you guys for being able to make that happen. Right. Yeah. When you mentioned, you know, people file on you and stuff like that, you have everybody the the address because it's Jamal, but it's what J.A.M.M.A.L. Yeah. No one knows exactly. So my family's Palestinian. My father would tell me one we're Catholic. One M is Muslim and two is
00:21:43
Speaker
a Catholic or whatever floats your boat down. My father was born in Jerusalem. They got a honestly, I kind of alluded to this story before. But I will add myself after. I'll just briefly go over it. My
00:22:04
Speaker
So my family was in Palestine in the mid-40s, 1946. My dad was born in 1947 and was one years old and at the war of 1948 started when England gave Israel their independence. And my uncle, who ended up saving my father's life with a bone marrow transplant many years later,
00:22:31
Speaker
was shot in the leg by an Israeli officer. So my grandmother said it's it's time. Time to go. Time to go. So my dad, one year old and the other six children get on the back of a pickup truck and got the heck out with anything they could carry.
00:22:49
Speaker
My grandfather joined the Royal Air Force and he went through Lebanon, Syria, Cyprus, Jordan, and finally in England, but in the Middle East he would build runways for the Royal Air Force for their planes and he'd do upholstery on the side.
00:23:10
Speaker
Wow. Very interesting perspective that you don't really hear often.
Family Perspectives on History
00:23:15
Speaker
That story is not told much in these parts. That's something that, you know, it's like in history class, you don't learn about who lived in Israel before World War II.
00:23:26
Speaker
Yeah, it's a melting pot of many different cultures that I don't think many people realize. But I'm thankful that my family was able to get out when they did. My uncle wrote, or my great cousin, excuse me, wrote an article and it's really interesting. I'll send it to you guys if you want. Yeah, definitely. Just about like, just kind of what happened of them getting out. The other part of my family, like,
00:23:55
Speaker
Not my family, but not my extended family. They like left in a Rolls Royce. So a little different than my... The six kids in the back of a pickup. Where in England did they end up? So they ended up in Birkenhead, which is by Liverpool. Oh, that's the north, right? Yeah. And that's where my dad's accent comes from. And it's... It's tough.
00:24:22
Speaker
Is that northwest or northeast? Yeah, it's far east. So grew up there, very, very poor. My grandfather did upholstery there as well, and still did stuff in the Royal Air Force, but that's how he kind of got their golden ticket out of the Middle East.
00:24:41
Speaker
And my dad would tell me stories because the final sibling count was 10. So they, you know, they'd be poor as all heck and banana bread every day or banana on bread every day. And they would actually raise bunnies to make extra money and sell them. And people would eat them, obviously. Yeah. Yeah. Right. So they were there for I think it was like 10 years and then
00:25:09
Speaker
They came to Jersey City, like I said, my great uncle said, the getting's good and opened up an upholstery shop. And in 2001, we moved up the block to where we are now, which is Journal Square in Jersey City, aka chaos.
00:25:27
Speaker
We try and be out by like 930 a.m. if we can. Growing up there and seeing it through the decades, it's pretty interesting just because it just used to be the hood and no one wanted to be there. Property was worthless.
00:25:46
Speaker
I think my grandfather was buying buildings in the 60s for like $5,000. Crazy, right? Imagine. A little tougher for us today, huh? Yeah. It's like every time we come to your shop, there's a new giant building being built somewhere. It's like, whoa, they leveled that house right there and they're putting up something that's like 30 stories.
00:26:10
Speaker
Yeah. So, uh, I don't know if you guys saw the J squared buildings. There's three of them now. Um, there's a, it's Kushner's buildings. There's one that's a 60 stories, 70 stories, and that's 50 stories. And when that's 40 stories that J just did. Now, this is a, these are blocks with three story buildings. Yeah.
00:26:29
Speaker
So that was a parking lot when I was a kid learning the upholstery trade with my father and mother. A woman would sit there and collect like five dollars from everybody. And that was just, you know, that was a parking lot. And it's insane that they put three crazy buildings there. Not only are they doing that, but they're building a green space. So, I mean, we're very fortunate. It's only, I think, going to help
00:26:56
Speaker
Me and the industry were running, so it should be good. But like you said, I mean, you've got blocks with two family, three family houses that, you know, now you have six, seven buildings that are 15 plus, you know, stories and you're kind of scratching your head. So good to see Jersey City kind of coming back, but also not to see the gentrification, you know, some of the less fortunate people getting kicked out. Yeah, because where do you go? You know,
00:27:26
Speaker
Hey, South or West. Yeah. Until, you know, the creep, the urban creep, was it urban creep? Is that right? I don't know. You know, as the people they're coming out of New York City, you know, New York City is getting bigger and bigger and they're just, it's just swallowing up everything around it.
00:27:41
Speaker
It's so literally like I can't tell you how many times I go to Brooklyn and same story. Oh, we're moving to the heights. We're moving to downtown. And it's it's it's wonderful. But it's you see it more and more. I mean, I love it. Don't get me wrong, because, you know, I love that kind of hip, you know, New York vibe, like those little bistros coming in the neighborhood, just like that Banketteville that we just did. So those are clients moving in. You know, that's how I see it. And
00:28:12
Speaker
I honestly, I wish I started social media earlier, but not a big social media guy. Like Rob, I was a history teacher for a few years, so I just didn't need it during that anyway. And just started doing that and like the world, my eyes have opened, you know, from how great of a tool that can be just for business. Huge part of
00:28:37
Speaker
It's a necessary evil. It could be exhausting and feel very fake at times, but it's the new form of advertising. Oh yeah, it's totally gone. I mean, I don't think people understand how much time it takes that is like put into the social media aspect of it. I mean, I can only imagine.
00:28:58
Speaker
this show, like, you know, the time and, you know, everything that this takes straight straight to tape. Yeah. All right. So we've got I mean, it used to take. Yeah, it used to take longer. But literally, when I hit stop record, that's it's going to get uploaded. I got like 10 more minutes of, you know, uploading and then that's it.
00:29:18
Speaker
Hey Jim, I want to circle back to the banana sandwich. Oh yeah. Because I grew up with that. We used to toast the bread. Yeah. With sugar or no? No, no. And you smash the banana or just slice this? Yeah, just banana on toast. For me, like we were talking about before we started, I got a textures thing. So that just doesn't work for me.
00:29:40
Speaker
Butter? Any butter? Just banana. We do like peanut butter and banana on toast. That's good. It's too expensive. You could have some rabbit, but no banana. I would take the rabbit. That's the immigrant stuff. It is. And like kind of we were talking about, like you don't really hear that a lot. I mean, I feel like I'm a 90 year old man in a 33 year old body now at this point, because I know so much of this history and like everything and I'm
00:30:10
Speaker
I'm thankful that it's close to, you know, that I'm so close to our removal from another place or actually our migration here, I should say, and how the business is kind of connected to that migration. So it's, it's very neat.
00:30:27
Speaker
Oh, yeah. I mean, talk about a real example of the American dream, like in 50 years, not even 50 years. I don't know. They started the upholstery business of what, 63? Yeah. So, you know, April was 60 years and only came here in the 50s. No, they came here that year. Oh, well, sure.
00:30:47
Speaker
they hit the ground running immigrants you know they want to work i mean you're not saying you can't do that now you know now. People come here and you can't start your own business you know it's a lot harder.
00:31:01
Speaker
Yeah, it's, uh, well, not to discredit what you did. I would say it's, it's a lot harder just and just getting the monetary funds you need compared to back then, you know, back then it was like a handshake, you know, and you can kind of get by here. It's, you know, Hey, the credit cards coming after you. I mean, just to lease this building, Rob and I are on the hook personally.
00:31:25
Speaker
So, the business leases the building, but we had to sign personal guarantees that say, you know, let's say the business goes under next year. We still have to pay for that full five-year lease term. I mean, it's insane. Yeah. I hear stories, you know.
00:31:42
Speaker
My family has been here like a probably another generation before yours. My mother was born in Sicily and she came over here. I'm not sure what year probably like in the either the late 20s or early 30s. And she was the oldest and my aunt's other aunts and uncles were all born here.
00:32:06
Speaker
But like, you know, one of my uncles started selling fruit out of a car, you know, and he wound up having like a bus company.
00:32:14
Speaker
You know, this is how that, as Jeff was explaining, the ability to do that isn't the same. You know, we talk about this all the time because of our age difference, how much easier it was years ago to just get things going, you know? Like even me, being like 30 years old, like I started with a sign in my front yard.
00:32:43
Speaker
I love that. You know, that's you can't do it anymore. Well, you got the internet to help
Small Business Challenges and COVID
00:32:50
Speaker
now. I would say that that's where I mean, that's the way you have to go. I mean, my dad would always tell me stories. Yeah, but startup costs are so prohibitive.
00:33:01
Speaker
It's you can't you can't you need to have at least ten to twenty thousand dollars on and just be a small business and i feel like this business in even more than that yeah you know like and if you don't. Own the property like you guys are saying that it just makes it so much harder.
00:33:17
Speaker
Yeah. It's just the reality of today's marketplace. It's stratifying at an alarming rate and people like us, where are we going to go?
00:33:33
Speaker
Exactly i mean i mean i was very fortunate to be kind of handed the keys to the Cadillac and i'm not trying to mess uh don't drive it off the road i'm trying not to i mean we stay in our lane um we only do upholstery um
00:33:49
Speaker
We used to do caning, we used to do drape rework, but we just don't do that anymore. We don't have the personnel. A lot of people just went back to their countries. They're like, screw this, I'm not gonna pay, you know, a month of rent would I be paying for a couple years there in their countries in DR or Andores, which I totally get. I would do the same thing. I would go back to my country and live like a king if I could.
00:34:15
Speaker
Yeah. Yeah. Um, I mean, it's, uh, it's interesting. The streets are paved with gold, you know? I mean, that was the message that, uh, you know, my family got as well coming over here, but the situation that they're leaving is, is worse. Of course. So they have to come and take it.
00:34:37
Speaker
Exactly. It's like we said, just everything's expensive as hell here, unfortunately. Only getting more expensive. I was trying to tell people that. I'm like, one of my favorite phrases for the business in the past five years has been, I'm not Amazon. I am not freaking Amazon. I got customers coming in and they're like, oh, I have this chair. It needs to be done by the end of the week.
00:35:04
Speaker
I'm like, OK, you got the fabric. You know, no. What the hell are you going to do? It's going to take us two weeks to get the fabric. Isn't it so crazy? I mean, I was traumatized by Covid. I can only imagine your supply chain issues. We couldn't get slides for like eight months. Crazy.
00:35:23
Speaker
Nobody wanted us in their houses, you know, yeah, yeah, it was it was some customers were just really not great to be honest and like I was okay with losing them like because my father like I said before is a cancer survivor and you know, we went through with him.
00:35:42
Speaker
So I waited a little bit until everything was right. But I mean, I think we we closed from mid-March to maybe mid-June. So that wasn't too bad. And I feel like we opened up relatively quickly. And God, when we opened up, I mean, it was just a floodgate.
00:36:05
Speaker
Like it was, I mean, I've never, I heard this from every person. Like I'm sitting on my couch. That's all I'm doing. And I hate it and it's old and it needs to be, and it was great. I mean, I think I was backed up like six to eight months.
00:36:21
Speaker
That's wonderful. I mean, I've never experienced something like that before in my life. It was great. Um, we've, thankfully we've, uh, we've always been busy, you know, uh, just like you guys kind of ebbs and flows into some of the, you know, some of the crazier stuff, but you know, usually we have a couple of months to work on him, which is great. You know, I sleep well. Um, how much of the businesses repairs, how much of it is built from scratch?
00:36:51
Speaker
Uh, kind of all depends. I would say like bank cat builds, maybe like three to five a year, depending like different sizes and everything. I mean, we've built three with you in the past, like in, in one year's time, I would say, um,
00:37:10
Speaker
I would say we do a lot of residential probably like 25% residential, a good 50. Well, no, I should I should say like another, maybe like 50% commercial stuff. And then probably like another
00:37:25
Speaker
25% like mid-century modern. We do a lot of work for the guys down at Lenovo Design in Jersey City and they just got such wonderful stuff. Teak, Rosewood, everything in between. Yeah, I think we've mentioned them before. If we haven't, Lenovo Design, right? Yeah, so like Lars and David. Yeah, they're
00:37:52
Speaker
Not Dutch. Danish. I always get this wrong. They are Danish, right? Lars is Danish and David's from I think Chicago. But anyway, so they go overseas and buy up like whole shipping containers full of they're not in shipping containers, but they buy all this furniture and put them in shipping containers, real mid-century Danish stuff and send it back here and then recondition it and sell it.
00:38:18
Speaker
So if you've ever saw the show American Pickers on like History Channel, that's kind of what they do. They'll they'll literally go into the people's houses. And since Lars is from there, they'll actually he has just family there already. So they'll actually just go in and start picking. But.
00:38:35
Speaker
Lars and David will both go together separate couple times a year and just start picking and picking and sounds so cool. All right. It's crazy. What's the process? Like my couch is all pooped out. I mean, I want to get it reupholstered. Yeah. Hey, Jim.
00:38:53
Speaker
Wayfair.com. Yeah. That's that's a big first. You know, is it a good couch? Where'd you get it? Yeah, you know, and some people don't like that question. They don't like to hear. No, especially if it's their quote unquote heirloom. Yeah. Granny's furniture. We get that too. But, you know, this is a lane. Oh, boy.
00:39:17
Speaker
You know, you got to tell them the price is the price, but, you know, when someone's telling me they got it from Bob's or Wayfair, I'm just like, just throw it out. Yeah. Let's let's say it came from Bassett or something.
00:39:30
Speaker
Okay, yeah, no, Basset's great. I mean, as long as it has good bones, you know, what you're really looking for is you want that North Carolina furniture. Yeah. That's like for the US, that's like the Mecca. When we look at the auction websites where you buy used woodworking machinery, it's like they're all shutting down. No way. Almost all the auctions are Massachusetts, Pennsylvania, North Carolina. No way. Yeah. Yeah.
00:39:58
Speaker
There's a couple of pollsters in North Carolina that I follow on Instagram and they seem to be like the getting good down there. But I mean, that's just that's that's like where you want to be as an upholsterer. I don't know if the money's there. I mean, like it is here. Then you gotta live in North Carolina. Yeah, I don't know if I need that.
00:40:18
Speaker
So what can I text your pictures? So usually it's like email. I can't stand when people text me pictures. I'm just like, it's gonna get lost. You know, it's, it's literally it's my cell phone, like, and people don't realize that they think it's like, I don't know, maybe people think it's this big company that it isn't.
00:40:37
Speaker
Like I try not to tell like bigger companies that we work with how small like we are. That's like us. We're like, yeah, we'll just step on you and not pay you. We'll hire you and then not pay you if we know that you're this small. I don't know how many times Jeff has told people, no, this is it. This is the whole company. Yeah. We were in Vegas at KBIS, which is like kitchen and bath industry show or whatever. OK.
00:41:01
Speaker
And, you know, so all the big cabinetry companies and hardware companies and there's like a Ford thing and they have all these trucks. You know, so we were looking and he goes, oh, how big is your fleet? Zero.
00:41:16
Speaker
Everybody always asks, like, are you, who's gonna, the people that are coming to pick it up, you know, I'm like, you're looking at them, you know, like, quick tells you think this is, I was struggling a couple of weeks ago, going up, I mean, if you've ever been to Hoboken or Jersey City, these old historic buildings. We've direct furniture up there. Just the front steps are brutal.
00:41:39
Speaker
Oh, yeah. And then you get in and it's like, oh, how am I going to get past this slant in the in the stairs? And you just you make it work. But, you know, it's you doing it like people see maybe the Instagram and like all the, you know, the glamorous stuff that we post after.
Upholstery Process and Innovations
00:41:56
Speaker
But just like you guys, you know, blood, sweat and tears. Yeah. But usually email pictures, brief description, anything you'd want us to know. Budget. Well,
00:42:08
Speaker
Not really. The one thing, I just didn't say the one thing, but one, one thing where one, I guess one pet peeve that I have is when people will call me and they're like, well, what's the price? And I'm like, what are you talking about? They're like, well, my chair or my sofa, what's the price? And I'm like, well, what the hell does that mean? You know, a chair and a sofa, how am I gonna, you know, everything's different. You know, I need to see a picture. Oh, no, but you've got a price.
00:42:36
Speaker
That's like I have to sit down with this information and figure out what the price is. There's labor, there's yardage. Yeah, like, okay, how many cushions on it? And like, people are like taken aback by like the cost of like cushions per se, and don't realize how much it costs.
00:42:53
Speaker
Like for me, to get you a slipcover made for yourself is probably going to be a couple hundred dollars cheaper maybe than an actual reupholstery job. Just because it takes so much time to actually sew, sewing in the upholstery game takes the most amount of work. So.
00:43:12
Speaker
got to put in all those little beads around everything. Well, yeah. So we overlock everything, which it basically just like sure is up and make sure it's not going to fray. So you're basically sewing it twice. So we overlock it and then we sew it again on the sewing machines. We've got two singers that are over 100 years old. And then we have a juki that's probably like 60 years old. So our juki we use for our heavy leathers like our mohairs.
00:43:42
Speaker
That's what the guy that makes the aprons that we wear, he's got a juki. He gotta. If you don't like, I remember, uh, what was it? Maybe six months ago you sent me a, uh, uh, a video of a guy, I think, uh, so through a quarter. Yeah.
00:43:57
Speaker
My heart, man, you know, like that's something you don't see in the industry. You know, I can't imagine. That's crazy. My mom had a couple of singers like with the cast iron at the bottom with the like web thing. Yeah, that's the best. They, you know, they don't make them like they used to. That's black cast iron machines.
00:44:18
Speaker
in every upholstery shop, you'll find one of those still. And that's another that's another dying trade having people coming to actually fix the machines. Yeah. Oh, man, like I got this one guy from Ecuador and that'd be like 80 or 75 years old.
00:44:37
Speaker
Still spry is all hell but he's here six months of the year and like you get him when you get him and if not You got to go through other people and it's just it's a headache Like I said, I've kind of you know, I just stay in my lane I've narrowed what we you know, we we do like my dad used to Do caning and drapery and that's something we don't do. We don't do car upholstery either Mechanisms like I don't want to get involved in that. It just doesn't make sense but
00:45:06
Speaker
you know any furniture you want to reupholster you know we'll take care of it it's been it's been an interesting ride the last five years especially watching from i guess the backseat you know i've been in this you know business my whole life you know i was
00:45:25
Speaker
doing hula hands restaurant. Shout out to them if you know the American, you know, restaurant franchise. But we've been doing work with them for about 40 years now. And I would go with my dad when I'm 12 years old doing bank debts. That's crazy. That's pretty nuts. Yeah. Some of the stories you've posted of like the stuff that's underneath of the bank. Oh, man. It's work from six years ago.
00:45:52
Speaker
It's crazy like I don't understand how some people like sit on some of the furniture that we reupholster because I mean it's just sand and yeah people are just sitting on it eating you know dinner and everything and they're like oh you know we reupholstered these about 15 years ago I'm like are you sure it's 15 50 50 yeah oh my god
00:46:15
Speaker
We might have a gig for you. I got to get down to the church. We built this altar rail and there's the kneelers. But the way we did it was they're rimmed in oak and hardwood and people are sort of complaining that their shin bone is hitting the wood. So we're going to
00:46:36
Speaker
take out the the padding and stuff that we did and we're going to see if we could talk uh Father Allen to laying on like separate cushions with velcro on the bottom that way if they get dirty they can take them off and wash them you know yeah that'd be a good idea i mean the technology and fabric has been so insane um since my father's left the business i mean
00:46:59
Speaker
Like I said, I was watching from like a backseat kind of in my 20s after I got back from college, I started working or I did start working with my parents for a good three years before I got into teaching. And that kind of taught me how to run the business. So I was seeing those fabrics, seeing all just how everything ran and calling those distributors and, you know, making those connections. Most of those connections are gone by now, which is crazy.
00:47:30
Speaker
But yeah, I mean, just fabric wise, I mean, there's so many fabrics that you can get machine washable now. And that's something that was like very exclusive to like a Sunbrella, like an indoor outdoor fabric. So there's this one that we carry called Supreme.
00:47:46
Speaker
And it's pee proof. So it was made. That's great for pets. Exactly. So it's a great selling point for pets as well as just assisted living homes. Kids. Exactly. So it's been a great seller. We
00:48:03
Speaker
It seems like they're getting bigger. I see a lot more fabric distributors carrying them now. But fabric pricing has gone through the roof. I kind of, you know, when I give an estimate, it's if if someone doesn't have their fabric, I'll just give that standard $50 a yard, you know, anything in my fabric books. I've you've been in the shop. I was like, you guys have you seen hundreds of them on the wall and
00:48:30
Speaker
You know, it's like you said, it's kind of like organized chaos, because it's good one day and then a customer will come in and spend like an ungodly amount of hours looking at everything and, you know, go crazy. But I usually try to just gear customers towards a couple different books and say, don't drive yourself nuts. But like I said, a lot of fabric companies have now geared towards like,
00:48:56
Speaker
Formins lines, I'm sure you've heard of that, like just Krypton is like the standard.
00:49:01
Speaker
Yeah, I think that's what Krypton was the original stuff. Oh, yeah. I think the fabric that he's looking for is an architects. Yeah. To match the use. Architects is good. They're very commercial, heavy. That Bankette that you did, the cushions for us, that brown. Yeah. And then some pillows. That was architects. Yeah, yeah, yeah. I remember you had you had a phone company, too.
00:49:28
Speaker
Yeah, I forget who that was. I'm still, I'm trying to find a latex foam distributor. The hardest thing to find because we do have, so just as the industries change with the fabric kind of advancing and the stain resistant used to, you know, put on a gas mask and you're spraying scotch guard. So we still, you know, we do that sometimes at the end of the day or on a Saturday, we'll spray, we need to spray and everybody get the heck out.
00:49:57
Speaker
but you know i try not to do that it doesn't seem very healthy obviously especially with all this stuff going on with 3m like all their stuff getting uh just basically them saying about the carcinogens and everything in their uh that's what to keep the water from soaking into the it's a water like
00:50:15
Speaker
technically there was an issue like my dad told me like 20-30 years ago with the spray scotch guard and then they like took something out and made it more like a water-based spray but less of a killer yeah cfc i'm sure there's still the same stuff i mean i'm a little concerned when i uh
00:50:36
Speaker
when I see the the roles I get for like finals and fabrics and like all the final ones say may cause cancer and I'm like oh great. Well yeah it's like we're here unwrapping these doors and you're just hit with this off gassing of the finish that they use you know conversion varnish or whatever it is.
00:50:56
Speaker
That's like the one thing I can't like, my dad wasn't very conscious of, I think, and I'm trying to be more conscious about that in our shop. And like you've seen, it's not so big. So that's, that's kind of a tough thing sometimes to juggle with.
00:51:11
Speaker
Yeah, because a lot of the foams and everything must off gas like crazy. Yeah. Yeah. It's, uh, you just, you can smell it, you know, so it's a little, hopefully I'm okay. Yeah. Making me concerned. It's one of those things where if you don't think about it now, you know, it's the kind of thing that'll catch up to you in 30 years from now, of course, you know, we got dust and noise and, you know, I think just the construction in my area is going to kill me with all that dust.
00:51:39
Speaker
I was going to say that before, like, man, just the congestion from the construction alone is insane. I try to keep my doors closed because it's just like you just. After a while, you just can't take it. It's just like a haze. And you're just getting all that like construction debris and dust in like it's everywhere you look. I mean, there's a two story building across the street, a tour down at the
00:52:04
Speaker
waiting for the courthouse to finish and they're gonna put, I think 30 something story building there and it's like, what? That's crazy. Holy moly, so.
00:52:14
Speaker
That's what I want to do. Put a 30 story building on my property. Yeah. I don't think Middletown allows 30 stories. I don't know. We could go have these if you got a little treasure trove. Yes. When are you going to sell the shop and move out to the country? Oh, big, big, wide open shop. Oh, I can't wait. I think I'm going to be waiting a couple more years for that. But.
00:52:35
Speaker
Yeah, super grateful for, you know, the work that my dad put in, I would say that's the golden goose that like he was able to kind of link on to or catch because, you know, my parents weren't well off. You know, I remember growing up.
00:52:50
Speaker
you know, the upholstery game wasn't this niche industry that it is now. Yeah. There was no, he was one of a hundred. Exactly. Like just on that for surrounding area, there was five or six upholsterers, you know, and one of them was my great uncle. So.
00:53:06
Speaker
It's really insane how the industry has changed and become more of a niche thing. I would say, I mean, people are like addicted to the Instagram. It's like HGTV for them. I have a client who works for ESPN and she's trying to get us in talks with a producer for an HGTV, like whatever, just to have a talk.
Business Visibility and Social Media
00:53:32
Speaker
And I'm like, yeah, that'd be great. I'll take that.
00:53:34
Speaker
I'll take you guys with me on the ride. Yeah, you go. We we were we were under a what was that thing called? It's something non compete. No. Oh, and the shopping shopping agreement. Yeah, like that. Ourselves and Jacqueline, we're being shopped for a show. Oh, no way. So we weren't allowed to talk about it for a year, but it's expired. So I guess the show's not happening.
00:54:03
Speaker
Damn. What was that going to be on? In one of those channels. They never got that. You know, it was like a company who was trying to develop a show to pitch to a network. Okay. Yeah. They had to pitch, but they didn't have resources. I don't know. Yeah. Well, that'd have been neat.
00:54:18
Speaker
They were like, yeah, we're like, go with this real like Jersey thing. I'm like, I don't know like how well that's going to. Yeah. Would it set you guys up for a lot of success? I mean, maybe you just need that one. Just made us look like assholes. Probably. You just need that one little hook. Yeah. And that will get you all those clients. Yeah. In the Hamptons or wherever else you want them. Any publicity is good publicity.
00:54:44
Speaker
Seriously, I I would love to get in like, you know, a paper or something. I'm hoping the social media kind of builds it up a little bit because we do have such like a neat history in the community and are like a staple. Yeah. And a diamond in the rough. Like I said, no one knows we're there.
00:55:00
Speaker
Um, but it's neat. I mean, the whole process, getting back to that, it takes, you know, it takes some time. Like if say Rob's got his family he wants to get, uh, upholstered, you know, he starts the process sending pictures, you make an appointment, you come in. Okay. That's one week. Hey, come and pick it up.
00:55:21
Speaker
Well, so then I'd ask for a deposit, you know, because we got to order the material. So I try not to have the, you know, the sofa in my shop for too long, obviously, because where am I going to put it? Oh, yeah. Juggling it on my head. We're not a storage unit. That's it. That's it. We're storing something right now. We've been storing it for I don't even know how long. Six months. Isn't that crazy? And they were like, we're going to start showing the lobby in two weeks.
00:55:45
Speaker
And that was, that was months ago, 10 weeks ago. That is mind blowing. Like leave it like, you know, I hope you got a deposit. Number one. Oh, we, I, we have a, I had them pass in full upfront. There you go. I'm like, yeah, you're a little bit sketchy. Well, what did they tell you like in the beginning? Oh, we need this ASAP. Really? Yeah. And then they just drag their feet.
00:56:09
Speaker
Yeah, it was the same people with the sectional who then, you know, disappeared. And then they had the gumption to email on like a Wednesday and they're like, can you deliver it on Friday? I'm like, no. I'm like, the soonest we can deliver it is whatever. I forget, it was like right before 4th of July. And then they're like, wait, are we even ready for it? Because I'm in like a threaded email with some other people and they're like, we're not even ready for it. And I haven't heard from in two weeks, another two weeks now.
00:56:38
Speaker
I'm sure in like a month or two, you're gonna hear, Oh, can you have, can we have this by the end of the week? I mean, it's, that's what I can't stand about people. And like, I, I, by posting a lot of the stories that I post, I'm hoping that more people see like, Hey, this takes a hell of a lot of time. Yeah. Like, thank God. I have three people right now working in the shop, they're working their butts off. And it's just,
00:57:02
Speaker
It's time consuming. It's, you know, it's hard work, you know, especially with old wood furniture, you know, it's tough taking it apart. It's funny that a lot of people will come in and say, but wait, I'm going to save some money, I'm going to take apart the piece. Yeah. And then, you know, then that's going to make it cheaper, right?
00:57:20
Speaker
No, what do you know, would you save me save me a couple hours of work? I get out of here. Plus, you want to see how it went together sometimes, right? Well, especially on tough pieces. I mean, we work with all types of materials, mohairs, leathers, silks, you know, anything. And we can tough channel, we can make whatever you want. But
00:57:42
Speaker
You know, it's, I don't know, people people are have ideas of what they think you can do and can't do in that like short period of time. So that kind of always annoys me. But I mean, I don't know, it's it's.
00:57:58
Speaker
It's very interesting to get someone into the space and show them kind of how the industry works and how everything works. And like, no, we don't just take a sofa and like pick it up and hold it for two weeks. And then like we're working on it at two weeks. We kind of do everything like an assembly line. Yeah.
00:58:18
Speaker
you know I have we have someone taking apart stuff and that moves into the next line which is cutting that moves into the next line which is sewing that moves into the upholstering side of it so it's all just one calculated move that's a schedule that keeps moving so and some people are Jim
00:58:40
Speaker
as long as you want. And that's great. That's what you want to hear, because that's the people you can say, OK, they're giving me the time and the space, because for me, like a sofa can take, you know, anywhere from like 30, like 40 hours. Yeah. And people are like, what the hell? Why? I'm like, well, you got cushions, you got to sell, you know, that's quite a few hours of work right there. If there's six cushions, that's 20 hours, 30, 20 to 25 hours. And I'm saying,
00:59:10
Speaker
Well, I mean, people are it's you're dealing with the same stuff that we're dealing with as far as pricing and people understanding the difference between qualities and availability and, you know,
00:59:26
Speaker
I can get this whole bedroom set at at Bob's for twelve ninety nine. How could that be? How could you want three thousand dollars to and I'm just shooting out a number. I don't know. To like for once for a side table. Yeah. It's so insane.
00:59:42
Speaker
Right, like but people don't understand that that's like You took that time and they don't know that they just know the finished product. That's why I'm like, okay The Instagram kind of puts on a story that you can see it. I mean, I wanted to start a tick-tock you guys have one, right? I just started one about a week ago. How's that going? We got like almost 2,500 followers. Okay, so you got some people on there. Yeah and a good for business and
01:00:08
Speaker
Well, I'm trying to get the TikTok monetized, which you got to get to 10,000. Okay. Then you can start getting paid by TikTok. Oh, boy. All right. Just a little fun, little fun money. I'm telling you, I got to get on TikTok and then there's threads now.
01:00:22
Speaker
Yeah, I think threads is kind of not going to work. I did it just because, you know, you got to stay ahead of the curve, I guess. But is that the metaverse threads? Threads is like Twitter, but it's run by meta. OK, Twitter's kind of going off the rails. I think for me, I think Instagram is just a very nice comfortable spot for our industries. Yeah, like just what we do is so visual. Yeah, it's all aesthetically pleasing.
01:00:48
Speaker
Like I mean when I'm watching your guys videos, I'm just like wow like this is so intense like and to see the finished product It's very satisfying. You know, it's it's very neat. You never kind of know what's what's coming It reminds me of like this old house
01:01:02
Speaker
Yeah, we got a new YouTube channel dropping soon. Oh, yeah. With our buddy John, who was just here. We're trying to think of names. So anybody who's listening, you know, John Peters and sort of announced it in the last video that John put out, which came out on Sunday. But we're going to start like a joint channel with an emphasis on like teaching, you know, do some like
01:01:28
Speaker
class classes and stuff like that. I'm not telling this very well. Do some instructional type stuff, you know, where you could have like a video and plans and stuff like that. So have you guys ever been contacted about teaching classes?
01:01:46
Speaker
Uh, some people have mentioned it. Yeah. Okay. I would definitely say I've been contacted probably once a week for the last three years. Wow. Yeah. It's insane. Like just.
01:01:59
Speaker
people will DM me on Instagram or just call us and be like, hey, you know, I want to learn. But, you know, putting in that time. Oh, yeah. It's got to be after hours. It's exactly. It's then you got a bunch of work in the shop. You know, exactly. And I go around that sofa, but don't touch it.
01:02:21
Speaker
I had this kid's mom come in. He was, I guess he was 16, I think. And he wanted to do some, like, I guess some hands-on internship with, you know, a creative workshop. And I'm just like,
01:02:38
Speaker
Man, what if this kid cuts his finger off? Yeah. It's like, no, you're going to have to pay me because I'm going to have to watch you. I'm going to have to explain to you how to do things. I mean, I'm just terrified like liability factor. Yeah. I had a couple of kids through my time period because there was a, there was a certain amount of time where I was like about a year out and I couldn't do the work by myself.
01:03:03
Speaker
And I was losing my, I had two, two brothers for like 10 years. Yeah. So then I was like, how do I replace these kids? And it was impossible. It was impossible. And my favorite story was I found one great kid. Uh, he, and at the end of the first day, he said, Mr. Brown, do you work this hard every day? Like this was an easy day.
01:03:31
Speaker
I can't tell you how many kids I've been through. All they do is they look at their phones and like they think, you know, oh, this is too hard. That's the point. Being hard is the point. Literally. That's why everybody doesn't do it. Seriously. I don't. I went to an upholstery meetup.
01:03:51
Speaker
Shout out to the National Upholstery Association. They just started in 2019. So fairly new. But they have meetups and workshops and everything. So I attended one at this Upholstery shop called Stitch Room Upholstery. I think I got that right or stitch work in the Brooklyn Navy Yards and
01:04:16
Speaker
you know, Robert that my employee is just like, Oh, you know, there's probably gonna be like 50 people there. And I'm like, thinking like scratching my head. You know, it's a national union thing. But how many people can there possibly I was 30 minutes late. I was the first person there. Oh, geez. Yeah. I think
01:04:40
Speaker
There was one interior designer who came. There was an upholsterer who was delivering something. She was from Philly, delivering something to Greenpoint. And then there was one other upholsterer from Queens and two woodworkers from the Brooklyn and Long Island city area. But I mean, there's nobody.
01:05:01
Speaker
There is a lot of gypsy upholstery guys, though, as my father used to call them. Pick up truck guys? Yeah, pretty much like, you know, they would go, I don't know, my, I guess some of the lands throughout the years, like, like, they've had enough of my father and his prices, you know, in quality. I'm telling you, damn him and his quality. So, you know, getting rich, you'd get a call like a year after or like six months after and they'd be like,
01:05:30
Speaker
You know, Jim, they came in with, you know, no shirt on, flip flops. Spoken. Yeah. And they take the bankhead out with them like we do. To the parking lot. Yeah. And like they would say that they would overturn him. Like we do a lot of bank, excuse me, restaurant bankheads and like just doctor's offices, physical therapy tables and stuff like that. So we try to be very time sensitive with that. Yeah. Try to take stuff.
01:05:58
Speaker
like the day of and then return it later that day. You know, it's funny, like some doctors like I have to pay this much for what and I'm like, you know, I'm coming to you with final samples. I'm then coming back a different time to pick up said piece. It's like, dude, you just charged me $700 for an Advil. Yeah, right.
01:06:18
Speaker
It's pretty crazy, right? And like, like, the people don't understand that. And then you got to come back and install. And for me, I like to block off that whole day. Oh, yeah. If we're doing like something like that. Yeah. And we it's like three, four people are working on this thing. And, you know, you know, you don't see the before and after.
01:06:34
Speaker
Hey, you can close the doctor's office for two days. Yeah, so it's funny. You'll you'll hear that all the time. Like, oh, can you just do it like overnight? Because we we don't sleep. We charge two and a half times. Yeah. Sometimes we go and do like overnight restaurants. We did a restaurant. I think we didn't have to go overnight, but we were just there like multiple mornings at like five a.m.
01:06:58
Speaker
I'm called the milburn standard it's a steakhouse in milburn short hills are really really nice. They worked at Houston's in the front off front of the house in the back of the house and we did all the work for Houston's for like last twenty thirty years you know Houston's it's a.
01:07:15
Speaker
very fine dining like franchise steakhouse like they all their leathers are from Italy. Nice. Yeah, they're very, you know, you know, just meticulous about like the stuff they use and stuff. And it was always great. My dad would make friends with the the GMs or the back of the house. And we just get
01:07:35
Speaker
Racks and racks of ribs and steaks every time it was great and we do one of the ones in Long Island by Lake Jones Beach and my parents are a Partner deal they have two Westies that follow them everywhere. They were the shop dogs by shop dogs I mean they would just lay on the furniture all the time these guys are spoiled eating better than all three of us and
01:08:00
Speaker
Um, so my, uh, my parents put the spare ribs or racks in the car. Oh, geez. Each rack was, you know, like some ungodly price, you know, these take 20, 24 hours to make. They started the day before dogs ate half of them. Oh, yeah. That's like one time my wife made a pound of chicken cutlets and left them up on the table and old Zuma got up there and ate them. I forgot all about Zuma. Yeah.
01:08:31
Speaker
It's crazy. Well, I mean, in a shop like this, it's not the best space for a dog or whatever. I don't know how my parents did it. They just always bring their dogs every day. For me, I'm married to the business already. I don't need that extra headache. I thought a shop cat would be cool.
01:08:51
Speaker
But then like you gotta have a litter box and then, you know, we open the doors, the cats are gonna go run away. I don't want to get hit. Yeah. I was thinking about that too. My sister's a crazy cat woman. She's a she's got a cool story. She's a tea sommelier and she was in the baccarat in the city.
01:09:08
Speaker
and she just came back. She was in the restaurant Tiffany's, the Michelin star chef hired her out from she's in the Bay Area for like three or four months, which is really cool. So I think she's got a cooler story than the upholstery thing, but
01:09:24
Speaker
I'm out of the depends on the audience Somalia yeah i mean what the hell is it Somalia you know i put it together yeah is there any like a specific name for that like i know like a beer Somalia is like a cicerole okay no i think no that i didn't know that either i was just gonna say beer connoisseur she's gotta come up with something.
01:09:45
Speaker
Yeah, so she just started this whole thing by herself. My family, like I said, were English and Arabic, so they loved their teas. Yeah, both of them. Exactly. Yeah, the English were sort of looting. So off the backs, but she's got a cool story. She's at the tea lady.
01:10:04
Speaker
on Instagram, but she she just she pairs teas with wines, you know, she makes her soaps and everything. She's traveled all over Scotland, UK, Japan, Korea, China, meeting with farmers and stuff. And yeah, all the big tea spots. Yeah, she. Yeah.
01:10:25
Speaker
Yeah, I'm not too sure. I know she consults with a company from India. But you know, she used to work in the bakara, which is very prestigious hotel in the city. And you like tell me these T's are $1,000 a pound and, you know, I'm having a heart attack.
01:10:43
Speaker
It's IT with her. That was she, uh, Anthony Bourdain, Jon Hamm, Shaquille O'Neal, like all the big timers. So she's cool. Yeah. We got a family of entrepreneurs. I got a sister who's got a boutique shop in, uh, Northern California as well. What city up there? At Aluma. Oh yeah. That's a nice place. Yeah. So she loves it. I mean, I'm envious to where my other sister lives. She's in Sal Salito.
01:11:08
Speaker
Oh my gosh. Yeah. So I try to get out there as much as possible. And just, I mean, I love, I'm an adventure guy. I love to. Yeah. Sausalita is one of the premier spots. It's, it's on the Bay North of San Francisco. So if you go over the Golden Gate Bridge down towards the right, that's Sausalita. You're literally overlooking like the Golden State Bridge as you're like on the mountain, like this vegetative mountain.
01:11:35
Speaker
Yeah, it's spectacular. Yeah. So excited to have that plug out there. And then my other sister has been in. She's so she just moved out there a couple of years ago. And then this is my other sister and Petaluma has been out there for 30 years now. She's probably seen that area change because it used to be real like country. Yeah, kind of thing. Yeah, it's very boutiquey now, like very what kind of shop does she have?
01:12:00
Speaker
Uh, she has a, uh, just a boutique, you know, she's got like clothes, clothes, leather, highs, uh, statues, like dinosaur statues. It kind of fits her personality. She's at sweet Melissa's. She doesn't really have a big following, but, uh, she's, uh, she's always had, um, shops up and down like Northern California. Um, and she's opened this one like two years ago, so it's pretty neat.
01:12:27
Speaker
Sweet Melissa. Sweet Melissa is, yeah, she's quite the, uh, quite the person. So she's just a man at the name. Sweet Melissa's really does her justice. Is that her actual name? No, it's Melissa, but she's well, isn't that a tune? Sweet Melissa. I can't wait to wait. It could be.
01:12:49
Speaker
I'm pretty sure that's a song. No, that's Meet Virginia. I don't know. I plugged that into. That was like a big hit song in like the early 2000s. Is that an Almond Brothers song? It could be. Meet Virginia. I can't wait to meet Virginia. I don't know my classic rock or classic. I don't know. Is it classic? Is that a bad thing to say now? Melissa is an Almond Brothers song. It's not sweet. There we go. Yeah, yeah, yeah. I think that was on Guitar Hero.
01:13:16
Speaker
You want to take some questions? We got a couple questions. Let's do questions. I can't believe anybody actually gave you a few. Let's see. I took a screenshot. What the hell is upholstery? How much to reupholster this? Well, you know what? A lot of upholsters do just to get a little sneak of what other upholsters charge. You just call up another pollster. Hey, how much are you charging? Oh, you know, oh, you know, give me a guesstimate.
01:13:46
Speaker
or you just send them a random couch that kind of looks like the same if that's what you do and you want to know what the industry is charging in the area to gauge but you hear some crazy crazy numbers I mean this but obviously in the city I mean people are paying five six seven thousand dollars to a poster couch and
01:14:02
Speaker
You know, I'm I'm over here holding my breath. Like, holy crap. My dad five years ago was charging basically a thousand bucks. What? Yeah. Yeah. Well, pre-upholstered sofa. That's crazy. And then I'm going to bring mine in.
Industry Changes and COVID Impact
01:14:17
Speaker
Yeah.
01:14:18
Speaker
You can call him up, I'll give him your number. It's just how much the industry changed. And what I was going to say before to tie into that was, you know, when we didn't have work, my dad would literally be like hustling, going to like hotels, whatever, like, Hey, I'm an upholsterer. Here's some of my work. And he'd bring like a photo book with him. I had one of those books that I put together. But thank God for Instagram now. And you don't need to schlep to everybody's place. Yeah.
01:14:44
Speaker
that price anymore it's here's the price you know you want to okay i'll be there and pick it up and that's it so that's that's definitely a good thing and you know just imagine you're bringing all these sample books so it's just a real pain in the butt so technology's definitely helped yeah
01:14:59
Speaker
But just fabric has just gone through the roof. During COVID, foam went through the roof. It went up like 100%, I want to say. That's a lot. It was insane. Most of that stuff's all imported, I'm guessing. Yeah. And then the couple of factories that are actually here, they kept getting shut down with COVID. And it'd be like two weeks to start up. And these are massive factories. And it would just take so much time. And once one would start up, then the other would get COVID. And then they would just keep happening.
01:15:26
Speaker
It was like all meat, all that stuff was like that. All right, here we go. We got a couple. Corey sent in four questions. Sorry, three. What are some of the common tools that you use?
01:15:41
Speaker
Uh, so obviously a staple guns, a big one, just a nail remover, staple remover. Are those like T 50 staples? Yeah. Everybody had what T 50. What would you say T 50 is? Um, they're what they're like seven, 16 or a three eighths ground. That's the standard game. And they're 18 gauge. So we use, yeah. So we use a quarter inch, half inch, three, three eighths. And then, uh, uh,
01:16:09
Speaker
I think in half inch. Yeah. There you go. That's like the biggest ones we really use. I have like the OD like, you know, staple guy that, you know, will take your leg off, but we don't really need that. So you have like a you have an Omer, one of them is an Omer. Yeah. Yeah. That's a good gun. Oh, yeah. Yeah. That's a I don't know if you noticed it's a long nose. So you got to reach in there. Yeah. So getting back to that question, there's like two. I mean, there's the major the tools that I just said, every upholsterer's got their like favorite ones.
01:16:38
Speaker
Like the one guy that works me part time, he comes in and he'll have a backpack full of his tools and they'll lay them out perfectly. He's very meticulous and like, I like that. Oh, it's great. Like he's very, very clean, like cleans up everything. And that's one thing training today, like kids, they just, they must be cut offs everywhere. It's terrible. It's like here. I mean, you make a mess.
01:17:00
Speaker
Yeah, but you know, it's just clean up after for the next project. But no, you know, you have those, you know, the staple remover, your pliers, you know, and everybody has their favorite ones. Like my hammer at the shop has got to be like, I mean, not 50, maybe 40 years old, this old ass rubber hammer I've been using. We have this antique, like, I guess, staple remover just as a wooden handle, like old, old, old school.
01:17:30
Speaker
Probably half the tools in the shop are from my grandfather. I don't know if that's a good thing or a bad thing. I think it's cool. Yeah, it's pretty badass, right? You can't replace that stuff with similar quality anymore. It's hard.
01:17:44
Speaker
Yeah, I had, uh, had this cool fricking like cotton puller that would like, you know, you'd put in the, uh, the back cushion, like that fluff and it just kind of applies it out and like, just makes it aerated.
01:18:00
Speaker
and it broke and I was I've been trying to fix it and then like kind of gets back but it's got some vicious teeth on it inside it'll just kill you so yeah they just and it weighs probably like 120 pounds oh geez it's got these old school wheels on it it's pretty neat so it's it's it's pretty cool um but everybody's got their standard like there's there's an end scissors
01:18:24
Speaker
Oh man. Yeah. Everybody's got their scissors. Like everybody, you know, everybody has their, they're just, I don't know. And everybody's like, it's like what hurt about like using other people's tools. Like these are my tools. Like it's my name on it. That's like my wife is a hairdresser. Yeah. And like I, you know, they'll like occasionally like share like blow dryers and stuff like that. But the scissors, I don't think the scissors like change hands. Oh yeah.
01:18:49
Speaker
It's like a kitchen chef's knives. Yeah. Oh, yeah. That's you know, that's his pride and joy. That's his toolkit that he's bringing to work like a butcher chisels and planes and stuff like, you know, if I have a plane that Rob needs or vice versa, like we swap them off, but.
01:19:04
Speaker
It's kind of like in another shop like where maybe you weren't so friendly with the people like it would kind of be like off like don't touch my shit. Yeah, no, it is. It's true. I mean, I mean, it's funny when the two my two masters, Robert and Jonathan, work together there. They kind of like they keep to themselves. They want like their own tools. But like you kind of.
01:19:25
Speaker
you get to like a, I don't know, you just have the feel with certain tools. Oh, yeah, I always remember with I did a job with another upholsterer a couple years ago, my dad is still running the business. And he's like, How do you hold like we were having like just this discussion of how you hold the pliers and stuff are like, Oh, you hold them like this. And he's like, Oh, okay, you put your hand there too. And I'm like, Yeah, I put my finger this way. And like, okay, you're doing it the right way. And there's
01:19:50
Speaker
There's like an art form to like, you know, it's technique. So you kind of like pick it up slowly. But everybody's got their own tools. That's part of the job is getting that comfortability with your tools and your. And knowing it. Yeah. Do you use pinking shoes at all? Not really. Pinking shoes, those are small guys. No, those are the ones with the zigzag. No, I don't think we do actually. What do you use to measure? Measure stuff. Yeah.
01:20:19
Speaker
big measure and rulers. That's really it. We got like, you know, you got your yard stick, which is big for us because everything's measured in yards and lay a flat. Yeah. And then, you know, 54 and sure. And then I got like a 72 and sure. And that's basically it. That's all we really need. And we have the, uh, what's the, uh, L shaped guy, T square, T square. We got one of those guys. What do you guys Mark with chalk?
01:20:42
Speaker
is chalk. Yeah, like Taylor chalk. Is it like in like a pencil that you can like? Yeah, you can do that. Or I just have like those little round. Yeah, I have like the round ones as well. I just try to get whatever the hell everybody needs. Like I'd rather have more than less because I'm sure we're going to use it or always kind of churning stuff out.
01:21:03
Speaker
What was I gonna say? The one thing you cannot do, marking wise, you're not supposed to use any permanent marker or a pen. That's like, no, no, because it bleeds through. So,
Business Management Evolution
01:21:16
Speaker
but like, you'll get yelled at like, my father would yell at me. Like, don't suck. So you need scissors, wires, pliers, staple, staple gun. You need your nail remover.
01:21:30
Speaker
And then you need your staple remover, that's really it, right? And your hammer. And your measurement tools, layout tools. Yeah, that's pretty much it. So anybody could be an upholstery. And a sewing machine. I'm telling you, and a sewing machine. If you can sew, that's half of the game, honestly. We just got a new hire, name's Angelica, shout you out.
01:21:52
Speaker
I'm sure you won't listen, but that's OK. You better listen. Right. Come on. I'm going to put this on. I'm freaking the Bose speaker for everybody to hear. But now she's great. She's a great team member. She wants to learn and a lot of people don't want to and don't want to do stuff that they think is.
01:22:11
Speaker
not in not what they see as in their job. Like, oh, she's taken apart stuff. She's like doing whatever. She's a seamstress, but she wants to learn. I have a lot of people who call me about learning. Like I just had someone from Patterson. He's like in this artsy fartsy building with all these other art people. And he's like, hey, can I just come in and like, you know, just watch you guys learn and like, you know, would you be willing to teach classes to come here? And I'm just like,
01:22:40
Speaker
You know, that's the whole process, man. We worked seven to seven. Someone's in the shop every day and then nine to six. This is why we like you, Joe. Yeah. We're like six, six thirty to four thirty. Yeah. I mean, it's.
01:22:54
Speaker
So nobody kill me or whatever. I hope there's no wackos, but I live on top of the store. So I literally, I'll do my paperwork in the morning and nine o'clock I come down usually unless there's a big 43 foot long bankette waiting for me and I'll come down earlier. But usually Robert opens up the shop, gets the shop ready and I take care of all the non-exciting administrative stuff.
01:23:21
Speaker
uh it's the worst stuff oh it's terrible i was doing my own books till uh last two years ago and i'm like scratching my head how the hell are my parents like the taxes everything like filing the actuals action yeah that's crazy yeah i don't i don't do that anymore thank god you know i keep the books but
01:23:40
Speaker
All the tax stuff is. Well, yeah, we got to. You know, QuickBooks and everything now, but like everything was like check, you know, actual check, you know, is here's your payment for the week. And like, I'd get paid like until I think a year and a half ago via a check. And I'm just like feeling like I'm in the 1920s over here. We still do checks, but.
01:24:04
Speaker
We're not employ, you know, we're just taking an owner draw. So it's like, okay, I can't do like a payroll. Yeah. Um, well, it took, uh, me five years to set up the way I wanted to. And that's because I got one of those knock out of the park jobs that kind of saves your butt. Like I said, just owning the building makes life easier. Cause what's your major overhead? It's right. It's like back in the old shop.
01:24:30
Speaker
Yeah. So life is good. You know, you just, you know, overhead, um, during the pandemic. Oh my God. You know, like I lost all my commercial jobs, those commercial jobs, those tech companies, restaurants, everything else. That was my big slice of the pie. And none of them thinking of it. It's, you know, commercial stuff's probably like 70% of our business, but, uh, we, we landed like a big, uh, contract with the high at times square. We did 50 couches for them.
01:24:57
Speaker
Thankfully, not at all at once. Obviously, you see the shop. It took us like, I think, eight months of just like dancing. You know, that's how you know, big and small we are. Plus, not only that, but we were so busy just with residential because you're in the heart of COVID. So that really saved me and made it possible for me to
01:25:19
Speaker
kind of get paid what I think I'm deserved and like, you know, empower my employees. And like, I've been able to, you know, obviously pay it forward. And, you know, I want to be, I think the teaching aspect and, you know, being, or being a teacher and just also working for my parents that kind of gave me
01:25:39
Speaker
that perspective that I needed to say, hey, like, you know, this is how I wanted to be treated, you know, have empathy and be mindful of others, you know, and I'll tell you what, man, that's a beautiful sentiment. And not that many people actually acted out. Yeah. So, you know, my
01:25:59
Speaker
A couple of my guys are from Mexico, so when they have parties, I'll go over and, you know, get a mariachi band in there and a bottle of Tana tequila. So it's always a good time, but, you know, I'm, you know, I feel like family to them and, you know, they're, I'm grateful for them as much as they're grateful for me. So, you know, one hand watches the other and you, you got to know, you know what, you got to just treat your employees like you wanted to be treated and like,
01:26:25
Speaker
If you have good employees, you want to make sure that they want to stay, you know, and they are the most valuable asset a small business can have. Seriously, especially in the industry like myself, you know, there's, I just don't have like, I can do upholstery. I have, uh, knowledge, but it's just like, where's the time, you know, who's going to go pick up this stuff? Who's going to answer the emails? Who's going to do this? Like I'd like to have a life. When I first started doing this, it was, uh, Roberto and myself.
01:26:55
Speaker
And I would be answering emails at 11 o'clock at night and saying, what the hell am I doing? This is why I'm not a teacher. It's like reading the papers. Exactly. Those history papers that you didn't want to read anymore. Oh, my gosh. They're miserable. It's not correct in the English and the grammar and everything. It's like, no, no, no, this is going to Scantron. We've had enough. Yeah, yeah. We talked about that. Yeah. So let's go to the next question. Oh, yeah.
01:27:22
Speaker
What is the most complex part of. Complex I would say just you know being able to get the precise measurements like it's so hard to actually do upholstery like it looks I mean it looks easy some people but just like. Taking the time and being patient with yourself.
01:27:46
Speaker
is the biggest thing. To become upholsterer, like an okay upholsterer, it takes five years, at least five years. And that's to become an okay upholsterer. And to just be able to get those measurements correct, and not everything straight. That's the thing. Exactly. And it's a flexible material, you know, it's not like wood where it's like this, this is eight and a half by 11, no matter what. Yep. Material, you go like this, now it's eight and a half by 12. Yeah.
01:28:14
Speaker
So with a lot of things, we'll, well, usually we'll add about an inch to each side going either outer side. But like even foam, same thing, you need to do that. But just being able to measure and then like the biggest complex part, like I said before, in actual doing upholstery is sewing.
01:28:36
Speaker
Like if you can so selling tough thing channeling, there you go. That's the hardest things you can do. It looks it too. Oh, it's terrible. So the one guy that I was talking about that cut off his finger, Jonathan, he can do it like so it's a whole mathematical equation of getting the right just diameter that you want for the actual tough.
01:28:58
Speaker
And he can do it with his eyes closed. Alan's saying that he's been doing it since, I think he said he was like 13, doing Tufton. So you're just, and it's, it's mind blowing to see him do it. And he's like, Jim, I don't have a ruler. I don't have anything. I just, I see it and I do it.
01:29:15
Speaker
So it's pretty intense. Like, I mean, I came into this business knowing the business, knowing how to run the business. And I knew I could be the face. You know, it's my father kind of grew me to that, you know, only only boy in those. So that that definitely helped my thing out. And I don't think either of my or neither of my four sisters wanted to carry couches. Yeah.
01:29:37
Speaker
don't blame them a lot of honestly you know who my dad would get it would be all my friends it would be you know I think maybe 10 10 of my friends maybe 15 have helped my parents back in the day and like these would be kids that would be working there like
01:29:55
Speaker
you know, while I was in college working with my parents, they'd pick them up or whatever schlep to Jersey City from Bergen County. And yeah,
Community and Gentrification
01:30:04
Speaker
I mean, it was whoever we can get, you know, just any help was, you know, worthwhile help in in that industry or in that time period, especially my dad.
01:30:15
Speaker
he was even smaller than us. Like it was just him and Robert. So pretty insane. But we've made it work. I mean, just in that little shop and we're still continuing to make it work. I mean, I, part of me would love to move, but part of me would not want to because I love that whole mom and pop diamond and the rough feel. Like I feel like we're like a part of the community. Like we've existed there for 60 years and like,
01:30:41
Speaker
People just like walk by on the street and be like, wow, this place has been here forever. Like you guys are old as shit. I'm like, it's true. And I'm like, yeah, honestly, it amazes me that I can kind of walk down the block and, you know, point out that this is my great little shop. And this was my.
01:30:59
Speaker
You know, dad's and my grandfather's upholstery shop back in a day. There's like a white tiger on Newark Ave by Journal Square, like a little further down where the Indian section is. And I used to say Jamal upholstery and that was like a 30. Wow. It was like a 20 by 50 foot, maybe 30 by 50 foot long, like
01:31:17
Speaker
thing that's at Jamal upholstery. And then once when my dad and my grandfather died, my dad had a marble engravenment of my grandfather's name put into the one building and said Jake Jamal. So but yeah, it's pretty nuts. My my uncle was the last one there and he just he just left the block he sold. He couldn't take it anymore. So it's it's real change. Wait till all those hipsters move in.
01:31:43
Speaker
I mean, I think it's there already. I have never, you know, never seen so many white people. White people, dogs. I always say you go to Hoboken, you just see white people, dogs and kids. Yeah. Like that's, and I'm like, do these people have jobs? It's like California. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. When we go into Hoboken, it's funny.
01:32:02
Speaker
It's just like a lot of yoga pants, a lot of what's like the dude uniform there. I can't think of it, you know, like the the archetypal yuppie kind of. Oh, yeah. Well, it's like college people are that's why like Jersey City, like Jersey City is more of a chill area to be in. Like there's like cool hit like.
01:32:22
Speaker
As far as art galleries coming up and like just all these cool need hangout spots like where I feel like Hoboken is a little more snobby. I do love Hoboken because that's where all those interior designers are. So I mean, you can't beat that. The interior designer is your best customer.
01:32:38
Speaker
We actually we have a job going to Jersey City in the shop right now. There you go. Downtown. Like down on the water. It's the Hudson T building. Yeah. Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah. That's the second. Second. God, we did in that same apartment.
01:32:53
Speaker
That's where Eli Manning was for quite a few years. He was living there when he was the Giants quarterback. Wow. Real junk of a building. Yeah. It's funny. Tall brothers. A lot of people, a lot of celebrities live out there. And now you have all celebrities moving into Jersey City. So it's pretty intense.
Urban Development and Lifestyle Reflections
01:33:10
Speaker
So it's a good, good time to be in Jersey City.
01:33:13
Speaker
My buddy's cousin, actually my buddy who owns this company, his cousin, I don't know, I don't know where he lives now, but he used to live in the building right across from Goldman Sachs. So it's like a real tall apartment building that they built probably 2005 or something. There's even bigger buildings down there now that they've just built.
01:33:33
Speaker
Well, yeah, we just took the ferry ferry in and usually it stopped at Wall Street, but it goes up to what is that world financial or whatever, which is right. Jersey City is right across the street or across the street, across the water street. Yeah. And like I'm looking, I'm like, man, I'm like, I don't remember there being so many tall buildings.
01:33:53
Speaker
Yeah, I mean, it's insane. The Jersey City mayor is trying to make a make a run for governor. So it seems like he's headed there because what he's done in Jersey City has been insane. I mean, everywhere you look, I mean, I can't I can't believe like just.
01:34:12
Speaker
the surrounding buildings. I used to be able to go on the roof for Fourth of July, watch the fireworks. Now I can't even see out of like that double block radius. Yeah. I mean, there's a painted flower window behind us or excuse me, painted flower building behind us. That's like 20 stories. Oh, yeah. And we go around the block. Yeah. I had one of my the kid that worked for me was living there how much it was for a studio apartment.
01:34:38
Speaker
can't even imagine you get a gym okay that's great 2800 wow I was gonna guess 1800 oh no you can't get anything for 1800 not anymore man I remember Jersey City in the 80s oh yeah a little different yeah I had a six hundred bucks yeah bless our drummer lived there and there was that
01:35:00
Speaker
like a theater that was turned into like a not a church church but uh it was all like the facade was all painted gold or something like that was it the kingdom hall that's uh that's where the uh jojoba witness is yeah we drove by yeah it's beautiful yeah yeah they've done they've done some work in there i've got a couple concerts uh the one across street lowes theater is prudential
01:35:28
Speaker
was supposed to invest in it and split half the cost with the city and rebuild it because the ceiling, just the interior, it's terrible. So they've been doing more and more stuff. I mean, I love going to like, I'm a concert guy. And like, there's been so much more in Jersey City than ever before. I mean, there's new concert venue down the block, which is great.
01:35:51
Speaker
The new Italian Bistro restaurant that we did is literally opening up right next door and it looks like it's a restaurant kind of out of like Hoboken or you know Manhattan basically can charge an arm and a leg you know so I can only imagine what it would cost.
01:36:08
Speaker
I was going to say before Ali and I went to dinner on Saturday. It was 140 bucks for two people. I went down the street in Kingsburg. That's scary. Yeah. I just visited my buddy. I went to school in Pennsylvania. Shout out to East Brownsburg University. That was on my list of schools. Yeah. That's funny. We would have been there at the same time. Yeah. Good teaching school. And then I ran track there for a few years. So that was pretty cool. And I had enough and joined a fraternity. Yeah, I did that for a little bit.
01:36:38
Speaker
Yeah, you know, hey, in your 20s, you're allowed to do that. But, uh, no, uh, I think I had dinner out there with him and I think I had steak and he had something of the same sort. And it was like $55, $60 for a couple beers and that, you know, I couldn't believe it.
01:36:56
Speaker
Yeah, well, I went to breakfast. Christopher takes me out to breakfast all the time now. Oh, yeah. All the not on. What do you what do you call it? It's not an entree, but it was like, no, I mean, like the main thing in the entree in a breakfast menu. Is it what? I don't know what you would call that. But $20 at this little place in a strip mall.
01:37:19
Speaker
I almost didn't want to order this. These aren't even organic eggs. No. Like, come on. It's wild. I try not to go to the city for dates. I went to a wedding out in Stroudsburg and walked like that little downtown. Yeah, it's pretty cool. They actually had a music venue and I was surprised at the acts that were coming in there. Yeah, they had some big acts coming in there. I was always going when I was in school there.
01:37:46
Speaker
I can't remember the name. It was, uh, it's pretty, I don't know if you've been inside. It's pretty big. No, but I had quite a few thousand people in there. Oh, really? Well, I was surprised, but that was a good downtown area. Uh, Oh man. And you can get wasted for like eight bucks. Yeah. Oh yeah. I went to West Virginia University. They just get you wasted.
01:38:10
Speaker
Well, Wednesday nights at the one bar, Chasers and Dreams, it was called, which is funny because there's a like abandoned bar up the street called Chasers. Wednesdays was penny pitcher night. Wow. Entire pitcher of beer. And it's not like a fake pitcher. It's a full size, you know, like the 64 ounce plastic though. Right. Yeah. Yeah. A penny.
01:38:31
Speaker
So you would just give a dollar. Yeah, of course. We do beat the clock. That was always great. You ever do beat the clock when you were back in the day? I mean, it started off like 25 cent beers and then every hour go up to 50 cents. You just order, you order 16 beers, here's a dollar tip. Definitely can't drink like that anymore. Me neither. I think the volume back then was so much that it made the years away. I don't blame you.
01:38:59
Speaker
Some of the places are night when I was in school. That's not bad. You were in the city, right? No, I went to Arizona State. Oh, OK. Yeah. Which was a school. It was a party school in the 1980. Was that for draft beer or bottled beer? That was for a pitcher.
01:39:17
Speaker
I'm like, man, that seems expensive. Yeah. Some of the places were drinking drowns. So it was like, you know, you paid five dollar cover to get in and drinks were free until midnight. Oh, God. So you go and be the one night I drank literally 30 whiskey and coke. They're in those little those little opaque.
01:39:37
Speaker
Uh, plastic cups, you know, the little dixie cups. Can't recover like that anymore. I had two beers on Saturday. I'm like, I don't feel right. I want to stay in bed a little longer. Yeah. My dad would tell me stories. He was a disco bunny. My parents or my mom still has his sequined yellow disco suit with the rings and chains.
01:39:59
Speaker
Yeah,
Cultural Heritage and Family Business
01:40:00
Speaker
how old is your dad? My dad's 78 now. Oh, wow. He's still kicking it. He's uh, I see them here and there. They're uh, I like to garden. So yeah, I have my veggie garden over there. So it's uh, you're gonna have to come back with your dad. That would be a good episode. Oh man. Yo, I bet he's got some stories. He's uh, he's a sweet talker. He's uh, he's got some funny stories. He used to drive in as like 1967 caddy.
01:40:26
Speaker
all big as all hell and uh the stories he would tell my friends and me and i'm just like i'm not kidding that would be great oh yeah yeah he he really was living the american dream and success story if he had a Cadillac because that back then uh i don't know if you know this jeff because of your age and everything but like that was the real sign that was like if you had a Cadillac it was like
01:40:51
Speaker
The whole block would come and like, oh, my God, Mr. Jamal's got a Cadillac. Can I sit in it? Can I, you know, really lost that allure? Yeah. Yeah. It was it was so amazing if somebody had a Cadillac. My dad had it in the garage until like two or three years ago. And, you know, it was like they're paying the insurance. What are you doing? My mother just like think every wife is like, get the hell out. Like we need to consolidate.
01:41:20
Speaker
And somebody was going to make it like a chopper, not a chopper car. They were going to make it like the engine block in it and have it like sitting outside. My dad is a little like terrified of that. But, you know, he got some money for it. So it was good.
01:41:36
Speaker
But he did back in the day, he would have women from F.I.T. He would have women from F.I.T. actually come and sew and learn how to sew. And after that, he'd pick up one of his buddies and they'd get in the Econo Ford 150. Yeah. And they'd all head to, you know, Studio 54, whatever in the city, get all tuned up. And then they'd go to my dad's favorite Middle Eastern place. It's a franchise now called my moons. Oh.
01:42:02
Speaker
And they'd get they'd get the food there in Chelsea. And yeah, that that that was the game. And, you know, you're driving back home. You don't care back in the day because that wasn't a thing. And, you know, start over the next day or whatever.
01:42:17
Speaker
But that's a big tool that upholsters use if they can't find like seamstresses. They'll go to like FIT or any design school in the city. I know, like I was talking about before the upholstery meetup, she started out doing that and she would sew cushions and that's how she started and she
01:42:41
Speaker
I kind of like you guys did you were kind of spamming like interior designers and stuff. That's what
Customer Expectations and Reviews
01:42:46
Speaker
she did her like partner found a way to like spam like interior hundreds of interior designers in the city and then for an interior designer like many it's all about trust you know an upholsterer it's about reputation you know your quality upholsterer
01:43:05
Speaker
Not like, like I said before, those gypsy upholsterers. So like, and my father like always prided himself as being like a quality, quality upholsterer.
01:43:14
Speaker
So, uh, I mean, it's just, it's, it's, it's funny to see that you don't see that any, like that quality anymore. Cause that's everything that's your reputations, everything. And for us, it, it's kind of like, it's not like I'm upset when people come in and like, kind of like talk about like our quality, like, cause they don't know us and like, Oh, we don't know. And like, it kind of like.
01:43:45
Speaker
I don't know, I always paint the picture of like, we're artists in shop, you know, we're taking your frame down to the frame itself and painting a brand new canvas. That's how I look at it. And some people don't understand that. But you know, a lot of people will like
01:44:02
Speaker
I don't know, some people go and look on the website and see pictures and be like, Oh, that's great. But I mean, like Instagram has been so helpful for that because like Rob was saying before he used to walk her down with like a Rolodex of pictures and like, and that's, you know, and you'd be like, okay, here, look at, look, that's how, that's how to work. You know, that's, that's how you'd show people your work. But it is kind of annoying when people question your work. It's more or less the reviews online help.
01:44:28
Speaker
You know, that's just I tell every customer like the biggest tip you can give me is review because that's how people find out more and more about us. You know, you get those bad reviews here and there. I mean, I've had quite a few and I'm just like, I don't even care just because like.
01:44:45
Speaker
You can't please everybody, like customers will come in with an idea and a number in their head, right? And if you don't agree to their number, they're gonna give you a bad review. Like I had- You mean you had a bad review and you didn't even do work? I have three or four bad reviews and I didn't even do work because I'm not gonna negotiate- What kind of whack job? To do jobs for free. It's ridiculous.
01:45:07
Speaker
Like I had one guy shouldn't even be able to leave a review like that. Isn't that crazy? So I had one guy recently. He was English was a second language and I think he was confused on the pricing. And like, I'm like, there's no way I can do the job for this price. There's no way I gave you that price. And you know, the fabric alone is going to be more.
01:45:29
Speaker
and he just like screaming at me came in like all this stuff and i'm like holy crap you know i see my dad's nightstick i'm like am i gonna and uh
01:45:40
Speaker
you know, he left like a one star view, like saying this guy didn't give me the you know, he he cheated me on the price. And I'm just like, you know what, scratch, go scratch. But there's been other ones of like Americans like literally coming in, like I said, having having a number and they may have a price from a different upholsterer. But that's that upholsterer's price. Yeah, go there and get it done. Exactly. You're paying for that experience.
01:46:07
Speaker
And like, I'm telling you, my guys got 40 to 50 years of experience and you want to pay me, you know, $1,000 to do your couch. I'm not going to I'm not going to agree to that. No. And like the best is people get like offended. It's like, this is my price. Like, you don't have to have me do it. Right. If you want me to do it this bad, then you have to pay my price.
01:46:30
Speaker
And you guys run into them. Oh, yeah. I mean, have you run into the review where like someone has literally like got butthurt about the price? No, we we have a real hard time. Yeah, we have a real hard time getting reviews. Like we really have like maybe a dozen reviews. OK. And they're all good, thankfully.
01:46:49
Speaker
But it's just it's insane that like you can't please anybody and like you can see these like different companies. Hey, we'll clean your review. I don't know that shit
Work-Life Balance in Small Business
01:47:00
Speaker
like you can read the reviews and just know like this guy's an asshole. Like he should not have even written this. And it's like Amazon, you know, you go on there and you see like a one star view. It's like showed up late. It's like that's not criteria for the review. And it's insane. Like I think a guy wrote that I like
01:47:19
Speaker
just could turn my back to him and I like scoffed because of what he wanted to pay and I'm like that never happened that's okay and I'm like can you take down the review because it's nasty and
01:47:30
Speaker
And then one guy left a one star view because he's like, he seemed like a nice guy, but just it was like quadruple the price of like, if I went to Walmart. So I'm like, go to Walmart, man. Like, what do you expect? So, you know, that's just another like thing in like business that we all deal with. That's just like, you know, it just grinds your gears. You're like, what the hell? You know, why do you, why go out of the way?
01:47:54
Speaker
Right, because yeah, it's, you know, not the simplest thing to get on Google and leave a review, you know, there's multiple steps. So you have to, it's a very malicious act. There's some intention there. Yeah. Because you're not going to do the job for their price. You know, and I'm just like, all right, I'm like, please look at my colleagues and like, tell them you don't want to pay them. Tell them you want to pay them $10 an hour. Right. Yeah. And then we can do it for you.
01:48:18
Speaker
And then tell the electric company that that oh, I don't want to pay this week. Yeah. And, you know, I obviously I say like there's rent involved too, because like, of course there is property taxes. Exactly. You have to maintain the building, you know, I mean, just because you're not. So even though I do, you know, obviously I work there, you know, I got to maintain the building on the super. If anything happens, I mean.
01:48:42
Speaker
you know the other week we had to put on a new roof it's just such a you know you're dealing with that you're dealing with the upholstery business itself i had a family issue a couple months ago and i had to step in as uncle jim for you know some time and like you know it's there's always something you don't have that time off that you can take from like a big company
01:49:03
Speaker
Yeah, we talk about that with maternity leave, maternity leave, or like our UPS driver. I don't know if you're listening, Alan, because he delivered something we weren't here. We weren't here. And he's like, you guys starting a podcast? I'm like, we've been doing this for 150 episodes. Yeah, like 14 weeks of vacation. Wow.
01:49:25
Speaker
Where are you gonna get that as well? What are they gonna do or for for us? I mean who's gonna pay you? You know nobody I know I don't know if it's England or somewhere in Europe you get like seven to I think it's seven seven weeks to 14 weeks to and The government pays you which would be great. Yeah, but again like running a small mom-and-pop shop. Is that feasible? I
01:49:49
Speaker
I mean, could we even stay in? Even if we have to charge, we'd have to charge double what we're already charging just to be able to afford to take the time off and not work. Exactly. He's going to pay her rent. Yeah. I mean, I would worry like what's going on with the business even if we were getting paid. Yeah. Let's say Jeff and I said, oh, we saved up enough money. We're going to take a month off.
01:50:09
Speaker
what's happening to the business. You have to work to some degree. You have to answer phone calls and generate leads. I don't know about you guys, but I feel married to the business. It's an understatement. We have a friend who says marriage is a grind. It really is. I mean, you're doing like you guys said, you're doing like
01:50:31
Speaker
and different things you're wearing so many different hats trying to do this that that trying to and then just doing the jobs that's like the easy part like it's all the other things that are pain in the ass yeah you know it's like i've had this thing sitting here now for two days i gotta get in and and translate this into something that's 10 feet tall we have to replicate that 10 feet tall is that the flower yeah and there's another another thing in here but it's like
01:50:55
Speaker
You know, so we started building this kitchen. It's like, I don't want to step away from that to get into this. Yeah, I can't step away from that to get into this. And I'm sure as hell not bringing that home and doing it tonight. What is that going to be for? We're toasty after 430. We're totally useless. Yeah, it's going to be an insula. I don't know how much I can say about it. It's going to be an installation in Manhattan. OK, so OK, like a piece. Prominent in a prominent spot. Yeah. Oh, very cool.
01:51:22
Speaker
I wanted to ask you, do you know Sahara in Brooklyn? Sahara in Brooklyn.
01:51:29
Speaker
Sahara is what no restaurant if it sounds familiar a lot of my My Arabic roots. I'd say here towards Patterson. Okay, we go to Patterson a lot I like that kind of food and you mentioned a good restaurant. So I've eaten at Sahara. I didn't know how it ranked There was like authenticity or anything. I'd like to get into that kind of yeah, nice grilled meats It's really good. So me being the only son I
01:51:58
Speaker
when I was born and being the youngest made probably even worse. My dad and my family, they sacrificed a goat. So my dad had, I don't know if it was a customer or just a doctor he knew, slice up the goat and it was 50 or 100 people, family, friends and everything just because I was a boy. So the
Family Migration and Real Estate
01:52:21
Speaker
treatment was a little different in an Arabic family even though
01:52:24
Speaker
We're super Americanized. My dad actually learned Arabic in the shop with my grandparents, too. That's how he learned. Yeah. It happens fast, doesn't it? Yeah. Turn American. Yeah. Like, look at me, Jeff. I mean, I'm one generation. It's hard to believe I'm only a generation away from them taking the boat ride.
01:52:43
Speaker
Same. I mean, I'm like I have like two generations and some and then it's like going back like 400 years. Yeah. Like I have family that came here from England in the 1600s. Wow. But then I have like, you know, Italian and Hungarian family that, you know, 1910, 1920. Came over in the great immigration waves.
01:53:03
Speaker
it's insane everybody has like that one every family has that each side has that one story of like flight and like struggle migration just trying to make it it's amazing to think about like coming here don't speak the language not a penny nothing came steerage yeah it's like holy cow yeah
01:53:24
Speaker
And, you know, you were kind of able to do it back in the day. And now I feel like it's so much harder. There's just so many more loops to jump through. I'm like, you know, I try and have empathy for all the people that are struggling to get here because, you know, it's, you know, it's not that far away from us.
01:53:45
Speaker
everybody has a situation and you don't know what everybody's dealing with. Yeah. So it's, uh, it's kind of heart wrenching and like terrifying also to hear some of the stories, especially, I mean, I hear a lot in like the Spanish community now because my, my, my trade is interlocked with Spanish and it's like, Oh, there was a beheading on, in this guy's like, you know, it's the center of city. Right. It's all the drug cartels and stuff like that. So a lot of them don't want to go back or they,
01:54:15
Speaker
you know, they go back and like get into a fourth five place and that's that's it. But, you know, I mean, for me, I want to.
01:54:24
Speaker
get west of the Rockies, get the far sell away from here, man. I mean, yeah, hopefully my sister and brother-in-law are still out there at that point, but, uh, it's Jersey city is just a grind. I mean, it's great. You come here to make money and everything, but like, just, it just wears you down over time. And like, if you don't take those like just breaks and mental boundaries, you know, especially in our industries, like you'll just burn out so quickly.
01:54:51
Speaker
I couldn't do it. I like suburbia like this, you know, I like to visit, you know, drive into the drive through New York City. Like when we go out to the Hamptons, most of the time we come home, we go through the Midtown Tunnel. And it's nice to, you know, yeah, be in the city for 15 minutes and then out. Yeah, that's why I love during COVID. There was no traffic. I mean, you got into the New York City to the delivery or pickup in 15 minutes.
01:55:17
Speaker
I mean, now it's back to an hour and 15, but it's crazy. Yeah. I mean, for me, you know, I just, I don't want to bite the hand that feeds me and we do so much like high end, you know, commercial stuff in the city or residential stuff. And like I said before, it takes you to some neat places where basically the, you know, the floors, the walls, the doors, gold and marble and everything. And.
01:55:41
Speaker
They took it from the streets and they put it inside the penthouse. You can't. I mean, I always like in my brain because I'm never going to ask how much these places are. And you just like your mind blown by, you know, some of these places were doing like a house or excuse me, an apartment that's four stories in this complex right outside of Central Park. And I'm just.
01:56:05
Speaker
blown away like yeah we just laid off a quarter of our workforce in the company i like this gold toilet it's it's neat though i think i think i told you guys that my dad used to be like he used to do work with sibaros so that was a neat one for him that they would fly him out to florida
01:56:27
Speaker
you know, and all over. And as an upholster, that's kind of that's got a high clarity. That's pretty gratifying. And, you know, you got to feel a certain way. So he would always do like Maris Barrows house in the Hamptons, the guest houses that are bigger than everybody's houses here, obviously, and like all his restaurants in New York City, which was great.
01:56:48
Speaker
But it was insane. Sbarra's is one of the other restaurants that my dad has done for like 30, 40 years. We haven't done them in a while. They kept selling to him and then he would, or he would sell to someone and then like buy it back when it was crap and then sell again. So smart. Typical scam. Yeah. Not a scam. It was working and he's sick, but yeah, I don't know. Did he use junk bonds? Yeah.
01:57:14
Speaker
We got junk bond stories. Oh, boy. We've done. What was I going to say? And then I don't know. Do you guys do a lot of work like outside of New Jersey, New York area? We recently shipped a couple of nightstands to Park City, Utah. Oh, OK. You've sent some stuff like down what, Maryland? OK. Yeah. But it's I mean, people, it's a tangible kind of thing. You know, if you want to touch it, see it.
01:57:41
Speaker
I've had clients that will go into a local upholsterer because they know we use that fabric or whatever. And then they'll come to me and say, hey, Jim, this is what I want to do. Can you make me cushions or, you know, here's a sofa that I want to reupholstered. I'll drive it up from Virginia. Wow. And you just mind blown. I. Hey, you guys did all those what? Stools for the place in D.C.? Yeah. So Swingers is a it's like it's
01:58:11
Speaker
good first dates but I'll tell you that much it's a it's a like an English fairy tale like nine hole golf course mini golf thing and they have uh there's like four different nine hole golf courts and it's spectacular is it inside or is it inside it is so freaking cool you know what I always think it's like Alice in Wonderland like you're kind of just in this like magical little place but
01:58:35
Speaker
That's cool. Their whole shtick is great. They have one in England and then ones in DC that we did 40 bar stools for. And then we did quite a few things for this one in NoHo and we're doing a sofa for them in the next month or so that I got to pick up. But it's pretty neat, man. I had a customer drop off
01:58:59
Speaker
a sofa, you know, get this as a as a business owner, 12 o'clock at night on a Sunday. And he will leave that to like Jim, but, you know, we'll be there soon. And I'm scratching my head. You live there. The doors unlock. Just put it inside.
01:59:15
Speaker
Pretty much, I didn't want to do it, but like, oh, we have the movers were coming from Virginia and I was just like, I'm a human, you know, I have a life like, thank God I live there. They were supposed to be there like two hours earlier, and the chef across the street was going to open the shop and
01:59:34
Speaker
That's the night I'm a 49er fan and the 49ers got destroyed by the Eagles. And so I just drove back. Oh, when Purdy got hurt. When Purdy got hurt. I was I was I was in the Philly area and I was just like, all right, this game is over. Like, I'm fine. I'm just going to drive back home and got back at like 10 something. And these freaking people 12 o'clock come with a couch and a chair. And I'm just like, wow, this is like the most insane thing. I mean, they were really nice people, but it was just like, holy crap. Like 12 o'clock at night. This is like intense.
02:00:03
Speaker
Were they previous clients and they moved? So they their situation was it was just a family heirloom and they were kind of cleaning out a parent's house. But they ended up being really awesome customers. I mean, most of our customers are, you know, I would say like 90% of our customers are really cool. We've kind of talked about just interior designers being very like flaky sometimes. That's, that's like something like
02:00:31
Speaker
that gets annoying, but at the end of the day, like they're paying your salary. So, you know, you know, so but we work with interior designers from Boston, Detroit, California, upstate New York, Connecticut, I mean, really all over the place, Virginia. And like, you know, there's just Florida and people just send us the specs and you know, they're like, okay, we're gonna ship you this furniture.
02:00:58
Speaker
I just picked up furniture from Greenpoint Brooklyn for a designer out of Atlanta, Georgia. You know, and technology is crazy. Like you don't have to go through anything that people see your work online and that's it now. That's how we got the U-shaped bankette job. Well, yeah, through Instagram. I can't believe that.
02:01:18
Speaker
That was like those nightstands we just made. Never had met this designer prior. We never met in person. We never even talked on the phone. It was all email and text. And then we sent them off to Utah. It was just like, this is weird. Isn't that insane? But once you get that little rapport with these interior designers, it goes a long way, honestly, because they have interior design friends.
02:01:43
Speaker
you know it is like i said before they gonna start off with a small piece and then like it just gets bigger and bigger is a flying here but yeah like we could pallet eyes pretty much anything that we build you know and send it anywhere it's either we're gonna drive it over your house in the or somebody's gonna load it into a big truck and drive it to your house you know like a sauce walls oh yeah yeah we built these giant walls.
02:02:05
Speaker
Yeah, you guys have some intense builds. I mean, this is going to be insane. I cannot wait to see it. I'm always kind of blown away by some of your builds. So it'll be basically to the ceiling. Yeah. Yeah. That is intense. And, you know, how much is that going to weigh? Well, is it going to be is it going to be wood? No, we're still ironing out the exact details. OK. What's the coolest job you guys have done like project wise that you've taken on?
02:02:37
Speaker
like most unique. Yeah. Something that you've always gone back to and remembered. I mean, I think that stealing glass wine cabinet that we built, that's still got to be one of my favorite things. Yeah. Just when it was done, it just looked so cool and it was such a boundary pusher for us in terms of building it.
02:02:58
Speaker
had a great has like some great stories attached to it too and then putting those glass panels in we were just terrified and then one exploded it was like 60 inches by like 28 inches wide tempered glass the one just blew up in our hands no safety glasses you know
02:03:19
Speaker
We didn't know what was gonna happen. I don't think people realize how much work it takes for us to do what we do. I mean, they may see pictures and some videos.
02:03:29
Speaker
that, you know, we post, but it's like, it's so labor intense. Yeah. Like that, like, you at the end of the day, just think, thank God, you did it like, and like, it's up and it's, you know, it's hung and it's quality work. But it's just like, it's
Generational Transition in Business
02:03:45
Speaker
a friggin hassle. Yeah, we do. The most intense was the beam. Yeah, because it was just so big.
02:03:51
Speaker
It was big. All high up in the air. 14 feet was a 35. Just a little bit bigger than that. Yeah. Holy moly. It was in three sections. But how heavy do you think one section of that beam weighs? A lot. Over 100 pounds. Yeah. So we're standing on 14 foot ladder. Hold this beam up.
02:04:21
Speaker
And then, you know, so you get you have to it has to fit in tight, you know, so you get to the last piece. It's like really got jam. Yeah. Yeah. We have that issue. Oh, man. We were doing the channels backs for Salaya. They were like tough channels. I was like on the wall. Right. Oh, my God.
02:04:40
Speaker
That was another one that we we priced out with you was that was with the same designer that this stupid sectional and this other bull crap is for was like that a bank cat with a big like nine they wanted nine foot tall and when I gave the price they're like oh our budget was like that was like made up almost like half of the budget of
02:05:01
Speaker
the whole scope of work. And I'd priced out a mail room, this, that, and I'm like, they're like, can we save some money? I'm like, well, first of all, get rid of this nine foot tall by 10 feet wide channeled back.
02:05:14
Speaker
It's insane that some designers don't realize what the costs are. They need to know this stuff because it's integral to their business. Well, I've had a couple, I mean, I'm only 33, but I've had, like I said before, I have so much experience just from my parents running the business. And when I went to this upholstery meetup, they're picking my brain and all this stuff and it's mind blowing.
02:05:43
Speaker
because, oh, I don't know, like people don't understand like the time it takes to do a job. Yeah. And that's that's that's the rub. And I had a learning moment with a designer recently and, you know, she's like, oh, I want a bank at Tufton. And she's like, well, it's 10 or 12 inches by, you know, 160. And I'm like, OK, you know, no problem. And I give her a price and she's like,
02:06:13
Speaker
Jesus. Like, what the hell? Like, are you building like, what are you building this out of? And I'm like, no, tough thing is freaking insane. It's like, tell me this. Tell me without telling me that this is your first time pricing out a. Yeah. Well, you know, like I think designers, as they're trying to get into like bigger stuff, like I think Jacqueline does a very great job in her design game. Like she she's got it going. But like.
02:06:36
Speaker
A lot of designers don't realize what it takes to build some of this glamorous stuff. Yeah, because you might see a piece, you know, you could buy this thing on Wayfair and it's tufted and it's only $299. So when I priced the last project out for this client, it was like 120 hours of work because of the tufting.
02:06:58
Speaker
and it was double the time actually almost triple because of the tufting. It's just sitting there tufting and tufting and it just takes forever and like people just thinks it comes out of like thin air like this this process like but it's like it sucks man it takes forever and then a step under that's the channeling like it's the same thing. We learned a different way to channel of late
02:07:25
Speaker
So it's been a little less time-consuming, but it's still like double the time than a regular like bankette. Like those two bankettes that we, or the two, the 43 foot long bankette that we finished, that was like two weeks of labor, maybe, maybe a little bit more. And that was three people and me. So like you could say four people doing the work. That's crazy. Yeah. And it was a lot of moving parts. And I mean, you see the shop, we literally had
02:07:55
Speaker
a set up in the back where Robert would be working on the one and we had Angelica just sewing. Robert was also cutting and Aiden and myself were putting stuff together in the front and then just getting it out the door you know like and then the guy coming to pick it was like five stations in my little shop and it's just
02:08:17
Speaker
You know, you're always like just like juggling. Like I said, my parents garage is a great place for storage, even though I'm in the hot house for that. And then my mom's like, I'm trying to downsize every time. I got rid of my Cadillac so you can put
Networking and Industry Collaboration
02:08:33
Speaker
furniture in here. Pretty much. There's like a couple of sofas in the garage right now. So I used to be my house.
02:08:39
Speaker
Well, what are you going to do? That's money. Yeah. We bring stuff in. It's like, Hey, you're going to have to move the dining room table over and bring it in a piece. I wasn't, I'm not that crazy. I think my, uh, my parents would chop my head off, but, um, you know, they're, uh, they're cool with it. My dad's just, I think super appreciative that I'm doing the business. Yeah. Doing it proud. Yeah. Um, my mom didn't want me to do the business because she just
02:09:04
Speaker
you know, she saw the struggle of my father and you know, the money wasn't always there. But now that it's such a niche market, and I've kind of saw that and I tried to get I basically had tried to become like I tried to take over the business like 10 years ago or so and part of me has always wanted to do this because it's something I've always enjoyed doing but
02:09:27
Speaker
Working with your family is very hard. Yeah, so that's uh, you can't really leave that at the door just visiting side Yeah, that's why That's literally why I have a garden at my parents just to get my zen place just to be able to do the couple hours that I do but it's it's true and my dad didn't want to retire I talked with the woodworker and
02:09:48
Speaker
at this poll streaming it up. And same thing as dad is in the 70s. And didn't want to let go. He still doesn't want to let go. And it's just like, what are you gonna do? You're gonna carry a couch. That's kind of how my grandfather died in the industry. He just he was working till he was 82. And he died.
02:10:05
Speaker
That's crazy. And it's just like, I don't want to be that. Like for me, it's like, I want to get like west of the Rockies and like Montana or whatever in Colorado. You're going to fit right in Montana. Oh yeah. So I, I enjoy the, uh,
02:10:21
Speaker
I enjoy the mountains and just the wilderness. I mean, it's I had some, not deja vu, just, I guess, bringing back old memories as I drove down here because my my grandparents had B&Bs in Belmar. Oh, cool. So yeah. So once they retired from Hoboken, they would open these B&Bs. And my mom, that was her first job as a little kid.
02:10:45
Speaker
And I grew up at one of the last houses that they had. And fortunately, my mother sold the year before Covid. Wow. Yeah. I want to cry. They tore it down, built a mansion. She's the house was in Lake Como. It was a block from the lake, two blocks from the ocean, like right by DJ's area. OK. So that's where my mom used to hang out. But.
02:11:10
Speaker
Yeah, she's got she had a whole hobo can background. They're both self made. My parents, my grandparents, my grandmother worked in the library in Hoboken for ages. And my grandfather was like a handyman around Hoboken. And I wear his jacket in the shop. Sometimes it has his name embroidered in and like says property of Hoboken library on it. So it's pretty neat. You know, a little touch of history there. But, you know, it's it's for me, it's I'm very
02:11:40
Speaker
I don't know. It's just a lot of gratefulness and passion and just like love. I feel, um, just being able to do what I'm doing. I mean, I see you guys and you basically the same thing. Like you, you, you know, you go home and you think about it. You, you know, it's, uh, there's no other way to do it. Not always, not always positive. Sometimes it's anxiety.
02:12:04
Speaker
We were talking before we came on the air this morning, you know, the one client with the 43 foot long bank. Yeah, it's me up and he's like, Oh, it's too long and we're not gonna, we're not gonna hit our licenses and our coding and all this. And I'm like, you know,
02:12:19
Speaker
I'm like, number one, I trust Jeff and Rob that they're gonna do exactly what they say. And then I trust myself. And I'm like, there's no way. And you know, we still had to tighten them up and everything when we were there. And like, they shrunk another six, seven inches, which made it 43 inches. And it was, it was great. But it's just like, you never know with a business what's around the corner.
02:12:42
Speaker
Yeah, bar and doors. Honestly, even even to get like this time to like just do this has been like, you know, it's been great. But like, you know, I've, you know, scheduled around it. And I'm like super fortunate that you guys have had me number one. And thank you. And just like be able to get out of the like the office.
02:13:03
Speaker
like it's good for us too yeah this is sort of like our regularly scheduled we do this every either wednesday or thursday um you know anywhere from an hour to three hours or something and it's like it's almost like therapy and like you know yeah because we just talk
02:13:20
Speaker
That's the big thing. You get to talk about the industry between yourselves, but you don't get to hear another person's insight. That's what that upholstery meetup was. That was just a bunch of freaking people just getting down. She got beers and everything was great and we're all just cracking up about this and that and the other thing. Just industry stuff that's stupid and
02:13:46
Speaker
crap that we've had to deal with that has given us agita and like that no one else realizes as a business owner of an upholstery shop. So, but it's, uh, it's so cool to see like you, you know, take that outlet into put it into here, especially just for your mental state, like where you get to like add like a different side of the actual job itself, like where you get to incorporate like this into it. So, I mean, I.
02:14:15
Speaker
I mean, I don't know if there's an upholstery podcast coming soon, but it's pretty neat. I could get get that going, right? And we'd listen. You guys would be one of my first first guests. We met quite a few very cool people doing this. Yeah, that's what I'm saying. You know, when you let somebody talk for a couple hours, you really learn.
02:14:35
Speaker
Yeah. Oh, yeah. And just a networking like who you can meet. I mean, just like that, that connector for us with Jacqueline was amazing. I mean, we've done jobs, quite a few jobs with Jacqueline, as well as just with you, like just separate jobs. It's been really cool. Which I mean,
02:14:56
Speaker
Like I love the scenery company that we were working with, but we were like kind of small fries to them. They did a lot of like giant stuff and like the windows, Macy's Day parades, all that kind of stuff. And, you know, we're not there quite yet. Thank you. Thank you. You know, so I kind of, I mean, I didn't.
02:15:15
Speaker
I didn't take it personally, but like I understood like, you know, the margins aren't exactly there for, you know, they're doing, you know, six figure and up jobs pretty much and they're getting shipped stuff throughout the whole country. So like it was just taking a longer process. So just finding like a quality craftsman is like a godsend and like, yeah, we're like, hey, you need a bank? Yeah, we'll start on Monday. Yeah.
02:15:39
Speaker
Well, it's been it's been a great partnership, honestly, I mean, and I'm sure for the next whatever 10, 20 years, we're going to keep it growing. And hopefully, what's the saying your mouth to God's ears or whatever? I mean, and hopefully we meet some other I mean, I'm trying to meet other people to like,
02:16:01
Speaker
extend my business, I'm trying to stay in my lane, but like, just like drapery people, king people, I mean, just finding someone. The Danish company in Lenovo, he literally sits there and does everything by himself.
02:16:15
Speaker
It's like a whole day. You're just painstaking. It's just one chair. It's crazy. It's miserable. You just just sitting there. We used to have a Dominican lady. Really nice. She would just like her kids running around the shop and you basically just had her sitting there just caning away in this smaller than this was her like whole shop.
02:16:37
Speaker
And it was like a legit like, you know, storefront. But she just had like chairs in it. But like I said, no one does this stuff anymore. No one does carpentry anymore. And if you do, it's like dime a dozen. I've met a couple other carpenters that we've worked with through designers and just through just people that are that are having stuff built, but
02:16:59
Speaker
I would say partnership wise, I've done more work with you than anybody else. So grateful for that. Yeah. What was I going to add? Um, can't think now. Oh, we're trying to get a meetup going. Yeah. You know, you'd fit right in there. Yeah. Yeah.
02:17:17
Speaker
I mean, I see you guys kind of go around and to a lot of different meetups. I mean, where or what type of meetup specifically just an industry like everybody in like trades. Yeah. Well, like when we were supposed to do a ribbon cutting here at some point, they've been wanting to do it since the beginning of the year we moved in. But we want to get the building painted and stuff. Yeah, no, it's a lot of work, man.
02:17:39
Speaker
So we figured we'd lump that in with, you know, have people in, they can check out the shop, cook some food and hang out. That would be a great idea. A little networking. Hell yeah, that'd be a great idea. Other, you know, woodworkers, upholsterers, whoever, designers, architects. Don't know if there's many upholsterers that would show up. Actually, we have one in town. She's not an upholsterer per se, but she does like drapes and pillows and stuff like that. Yeah.
02:18:07
Speaker
So that's the one key that every upholstery shop tries to find, just like that seamstress, because that's the hardest thing. But
Artistry and Sentimentality in Upholstery
02:18:16
Speaker
if you have that, you have a well-oiled machine, you have a gut guy, you have a cutter, a sewer, and upholsterer. You can just bang out stuff. It's like a shop. You need a guy cutting the parts, you need a guy putting them together, and you need a guy finishing them.
02:18:31
Speaker
my times have basically almost halved because of having a seamstress now. And it's been great. My problem is being able to generate the business, which to keep her busy. Yeah, which is great. So I mean, you know, when during the heyday of code, like I said, it was like six to eight weeks, but now we're like, I'm like a one to two month wait. So it's not too bad. Usually I tell customers that like you want a sofa, you know, it's like four to eight weeks. You know, it just depends how
02:19:00
Speaker
you know how much ambition you have to like you got to come into the shop if you don't have fabric like I whatever if you're older I'll definitely come in you know do whatever I need to help you but at the end of the day like it's much easier there's thousands of books come in the shop give me a deposit we'll come pick up the piece take it apart bring it back to you yeah I mean we don't really
02:19:22
Speaker
I don't know. And like the, the main problem or I would guess you could say the main like complaint, I guess you can have is like, we, you know, we have the, the, the furniture for, you know, a long period of time. Like that's it. Like, you know, we make beautiful work, but it's patience. Yeah. You know, I had one upholstery job done, you know, back in the old days.
02:19:45
Speaker
I mean it's actually in Jersey City and I was an upholstered headboard and I don't know anything about upholstery. This was Edwina in Red Bank. Oh yeah. So the client had the fabric was like this blue suede kind of fabric and I felt comfortable because she was I was like,
02:20:04
Speaker
She was like, well, which way do you want this to run? And I don't see any what the hell is running, right? Yeah. She's like, no, look, you know, she's running her hand on it. And then if I put it this way, then the scene is I'm like, looks different. Yeah. I knew she knew 10 times more than I did. I just said.
02:20:20
Speaker
Yeah, just go for it. You do the upholstery. That's one thing I do like about a lot of I shouldn't say a lot. I'll say some designers like or even just clients in general, like they'll let you use your professional expertise. Yeah, that's why would I tell her which way? Like that's what Jacqueline, that's like one of the things that we always liked about her. It's like,
02:20:46
Speaker
She would give like the overarching idea, but then she would defer to us, which is like, man, nobody ever does that for us. You know, I feel like you need that just because it gives you a little like creativity in there because all it is is your imagination and creativity at the end of the day. Like you're literally making something with your hands. Like, you know, it's not just like a factory type thing.
02:21:10
Speaker
That's why like, you know, Jacqueline's been great. And like, you know, just like, and she brings us projects that are different and unique. I don't know if you saw we made a table for another designer, really cool designer in Jersey City, Crystal from DBK. But she kind of wanted that same thing. And we like, we took a table glass table, and we put a platform on top of it, you know, just
02:21:36
Speaker
regular piece of wood and uh, upholstered it, put a cushion on top and there you go. You got a secondhand piece for something that was sentimental to that client. So I would honestly, that's probably like 25 to 35% of our business, just straight sentimental. Yeah, that's cool. Yeah. I mean, you definitely feel, uh, you know, you feel great about yourself in those like saves.
02:22:00
Speaker
We did a cool one with Jacqueline for a Valentine's Day like surprise, which is really awesome. Where a client wanted to, you know, get a chair done as just a present for his wife and it like she was so surprised and stunned and like, you know, it's just a cool thing to be a part of happy that we were able to make it work.
02:22:21
Speaker
But yeah, no, it's a it's demanding industry and just it's exciting to just like work on these pieces because every piece has a story. I don't know if you know, like Jack White. Oh, yeah. He was in the pollster. Really? Yeah. So I didn't know that he was in the pollster in Detroit. Well, so he would put his lyrics in the upholstery. Wow.
02:22:44
Speaker
Yeah. So if you're in Detroit listening and you're tearing your sofa apart, look for the lyrics. Yeah. That's probably worth some money. Yeah. Maybe Jack White will give you something. But yeah, he did. He did that for quite a few years before becoming like a musician that he is now. I mean, he was always a musician, but before becoming famous and self supporting.
02:23:05
Speaker
So I mean, I see the upholstery game as like a neat, creative, like, you know, like your arts, you're an artist guy, like you're an artist person like that, like that rock star. It's like a sustainable art form. You know, you couldn't you can't have a steady paying job as a fine. I mean, you can, but as like a fine painter, you know, I paint pictures and so I'm like, that's really hard. Yeah. Being a woodworker, an upholsterer or whatever. Everybody's going to always need you.
02:23:34
Speaker
Yeah, you can do something that is creative
Trade Skills and Work Environment
02:23:36
Speaker
and is an art at the end of the day and still make a living, you know, and with some level of of security. There's a lot of art galleries, like I said, in Jersey City. And I did work for a guy who's a wonderful client.
02:23:52
Speaker
And so one of his paintings it was I don't know if it's supposed to be the world trade or something very Gotham black and you know everything and I look at the price tag and it's almost six figures and I'm like why didn't I charge this man you know triple the price but you know that's you know it's a little different in the art you know world but
02:24:12
Speaker
I, I, that's what in my mind I'm trying to get to like a high end appeal. Like, cause nobody has 40 years experience in upholstering or 50 years experience and the knowledge that we have. So no, those guys are all gone. Isn't it insane? That's, I was saying that before, like during COVID, I know of three upholsterers that died in Jersey city. They were just all older.
02:24:36
Speaker
And unfortunately, like, you know, that's what happened. Just like my father, he got lucky. I mean, so that was two existing upholstery shops that basically just closed right then and there.
02:24:47
Speaker
Yeah, I think my uncle's shop closed in the 80s. Yeah. There was nobody left to take it over. That's what it is. Like, who wants to do backbreaking work? Like, and yeah, all of us. We're looking at each other for punishment. But it's, it's, you know, right now, like the country's gearing you more towards profitability wise, like you're going to gear towards a trade school. You're going to make a lot of money if you go to a trade school.
02:25:15
Speaker
Join a union. Yeah, you're gonna be set for life. I mean we're taking the hard route here. Yeah, we're entrepreneurs. Yeah. Yeah, so I don't have to follow any rules though. That is really fun and unlike you guys I sleep a little in sometimes. I mean you guys are nuts. I like four in the morning. We get up early though. Yeah, that's true. I stay late. I got up at 3.30 today. Holy crap. Yeah, Robert. Robert's up at five o'clock. He's like I can't sleep. I'm coming in at 6.30 five o'clock or seven o'clock. I'm like Robert whatever you want to do and then
02:25:45
Speaker
you know, we'll lock up at seven o'clock, which is great. But not many people want to work like that anymore. But if you got the time and like, you like what you do, that's the thing, you know, yeah. And like our work environments really cool. Grill out in the back, you know, Fridays, we'll go out and have a couple drinks or whatever, order food and kind of chill. It's a very relaxed work environment.
02:26:09
Speaker
it has to be otherwise it's too much it becomes too much of work well honestly like my dad was that guy that was just looking over your shoulder and he's like let me see what you're doing like i just yeah like i don't have time for that like i i don't want to make you feel uncomfortable i want you to do the best work you can do and sometimes the best work you can do is me going on a podcast and them staying in the store and working
02:26:36
Speaker
Yeah. Because you come back and things just happened while you were going. No, it's great. It's like magic. Yeah. I mean, it's the same thing. Our newest hire is always like a maze. She was like blown away by these 43 foot long bankets that came in. She's like, Oh my God, where'd that come from? So, you know, everybody's always working. Like I'm always, you know, I'm wheeling and dealing trying to get like more furniture, more jobs in the shop. But
02:27:02
Speaker
You know, I also know my worth and I'm like, even if I'm not busy, I'm just like, I'm not gonna take this job. Like it's not worth it. Like I will just- That's smart. Yeah. For us, it used to be in the industry, January, February, that's when you kind of settled down and, you know, took stock of what you had, threw whatever out, you know, paint, do any, you know, cleaning that
Financial Challenges and Business Growth
02:27:27
Speaker
you need to do. Cause everybody from Labor Day on,
02:27:30
Speaker
through the holidays are like, I need this tomorrow. You know, and they won't stop. Why is that? I don't know. I think it's the way of our culture now, but it all ties around like everybody trying to show off to their family and friends. Look at my brand new upholstered sofa. Yes.
02:27:52
Speaker
Look at my dining room table, chairs that everybody's sitting on for dinner. Aren't they nice? You know, people want that vibe. You got Easter and then it goes into Mother's Day and then it's graduation and then Memorial Day, 4th of July. Right now is like this is the lull too because you have graduation and people traveling, which is usually I take some time off in August and like we'll close the shop for like a week or two just to get our breath because like you're just
02:28:20
Speaker
it's always like a grind you're always hustling like here obviously and uh it gets to be a lot but um yeah like it's it's a little slow now but like like i said like a month or two will work but being able to catch up is so big like just being able to get that stuff that's been in the shop for six months or whatever that i like that people don't care about um that's that's always important but like
02:28:47
Speaker
I don't know. I'm very grateful that somehow, even when we're slow, like, you know, I don't have to do anything in the emails, like kind of come in the phones ringing. You're supporting three or four families. Yeah, I'm supporting four families. Well, three families full time and one family part time and then myself technically. So it's pretty cool. And I've made it where I have like a livable wage. My dad is making two hundred dollars on the books. My mom is making five hundred, I think, on the books.
02:29:17
Speaker
And like they were more into the real estate side of it. Like that's how they were making their money. I'm here grinding away trying to take as many like of the bigger jobs that I can get. And like just like, where I've now like that big contract, I got it with that Hyatt Hotel has made it possible for me to now have that salary. I mean, I had like $300 in the bank during COVID, like during that, like
02:29:42
Speaker
It's crazy how quick it gets down there. It's like you always manage to just eke it out. We had a couple months since moving, but it was so expensive to move where it's like, it's ridiculous. It's like, we got to do this install so we can get a check today because tomorrow is the first.
02:30:01
Speaker
No, it's, it's, it's unreal, man. Like even if you have 10 grand in the banks, that's not enough. That's literally like this, this week, you know, I have to pay my taxes obviously are quarterly and that's like, that's like six grand coming out. So, you know, that makes you cry a little bit, but you know, I'm just thankful that you do sales in use. Yeah. Yeah. That was like another, you know, whatever.
02:30:26
Speaker
But I mean, it's it's a lot easier with the Internet now to do all that shit. It's easy to do. It's hard to pay. Yeah, exactly. And like there was those time periods where I'm like having a heart attack that I'm going to have to pay. Like I had my best quarter ever, but then I have to pay like fifteen thousand dollars. And you're you know, you're just like you see that money one day and then the next day it's gone and you see it going in and then you're like, I forgot that this huge chunk is going to come right back out.
02:30:55
Speaker
I mean, you like you lick your chops for like those big, those big jobs like we just did. I mean, because that's going to be such a great payday for me, but that's going towards quarterly and that's going towards pay. Yeah, it's it's very hard for businesses our size to get too far ahead.
02:31:15
Speaker
Yeah. There's certain limitations. We're trying to pivot and broaden what we do. I think we're going to be pretty successful at it. I think... Little by little. Yeah. This first kitchen, you could see some of the hiccups and things like that, but it's pretty
02:31:44
Speaker
Yeah, there's a lot of hope there because even given it's being the very first time, you know, and all the different things going on, you can see how it
Apprenticeships and Future Aspirations
02:31:52
Speaker
could work. Yeah. I mean, you got to learn somehow and it's always a school or not. So now, would you guys take on an apprentice or? Yeah. Maybe. Yeah. Like somebody unpaid, we can maybe work like.
02:32:07
Speaker
I think we've had times where we were probably busy enough where we could have brought someone in. But it's like you were saying, like, I don't want to bring someone in unless we can pay him a livable wage. And you know what I mean? That's a lot. Yeah, especially in New Jersey. I mean, this is the worst area to be in. Same before I went to school in Pennsylvania. I mean, I was I think I was paying like three to four hundred dollars in rent. You know, I was living with a couple of people, but still, I mean, that's what I paid. Yeah, like four hundred bucks. Exactly. Like here it's insane.
02:32:35
Speaker
$1,200 for a full house with three guys living. Mind blowing. Yeah. But then here, I mean, you can't afford that. Thank God. I mean, not thank God. My friends in Pennsylvania, they all have houses and they're all like, Jim, we bought our house and we were like $25,000, $26,000 because it was only $150,000. I'm like, well, yeah, you know, that's a down payment here. Well, not down payment, but pretty close to it here. Yeah. I mean, it's ridiculous. So that's one of the reasons why I would love to get out of Jersey. I mean,
02:33:03
Speaker
You know, not now, but whenever hopefully I have a kid or a son that maybe wants to do the fourth generation, take this to 100 years, like that'd be great. And then I can retire out and kind of get that satisfaction that my parents got, or at least my dad got from me taking over the business.
02:33:22
Speaker
I do still try to bring him into the business a little as well just because like he needs something to do. My mom would kill him if he was in the house the whole time. He keeps it young, you know, especially when that was your thing. Yeah, there's a distributor of upholstery supplies kind of by their place and send them there once in a while or just send them like measure stuff and like he gets a, you know, he gets a kick out of it and he loves it.
02:33:49
Speaker
Um, but, uh, yeah, I don't know. Like I definitely feel like a lot of love from my parents for actually taking this on. Cause I don't think many people wanted to. Like there's a, there's a meat market down the block from us. They were called Maloney's meat market. Oh yeah. I recognize the sign. So there for over 150 years, right?
Family Business Dynamics and Equipment Investments
02:34:11
Speaker
He had two kids that didn't want to take it on. They had two white collar jobs.
02:34:15
Speaker
They had that building for over 150 years. How much did they pay for that building? The guy who had Maloney, Tommy, he retired and gave it to one of the kids that was working for him.
02:34:32
Speaker
One day he like showed up and the place was just locked up and closed and that was it. Oh, what a shame. Yeah, I mean, it's it's tough. I mean, the same with the upholsterers in Jersey City. You know, a lot of the kids either, you know, the the daughters, number one, had no urge to do it just because like carrying stuff. And then like, you know, the sons didn't want to get involved in it because it took a lot of like blood, sweat and tears, hard work, no matter how you slice this. Yeah, it's actually kind of funny that some of the people that I met
02:35:02
Speaker
upholstery wise, at this meet up, you know, they're woman upholsterers getting into the industry. And I said, how do you, you know, logistics moving stuff? And they're like, you know, just hiring guys, the one in Brooklyn, she had 15, maybe people working there, blown away. I've never like my shop is
02:35:22
Speaker
you know it's it looks like you know controlled cast like you said but this one is this one was great and everything was in a plastic bag everything was measurements were signed off on on a piece of paper this step every measurement had to sign up next step sewing machine okay now this person has to sign off then it goes to this you know the upholstering
02:35:44
Speaker
I've never seen in a bullshit shop like that, but that's what you need. You need a warehouse space. And then like I told you guys, they had the, what do you call it? A CMC machine in the next workshop. So you can't beat that. Making frames. I mean, that's, you know, and I can only imagine how much one of those frickers cost.
02:36:03
Speaker
Oh, yeah, like over 100 grand. Yeah, like a base one, like starting 50, 50 grand, you know, for like a four by eight, you know, four by eight. And normal business can't really afford that. No, you have to do like we did with the edge banner. You got to pay, you know, twelve hundred bucks a month for five years. I mean, you got to do what you got to do as long as that, you know, investment is, you know, doubling and tripling during like your, you know, your
02:36:32
Speaker
You're obviously like your gross, you know, pull in. I guess as long as you're making the money, that's all that matters. It opens up. It's like buying a tool that makes you able to do something you couldn't do. OK. Right. So it creates a whole new like if you didn't have that juki and people kept coming to you and saying, can you do these leather? You're like, you can't. You know, we can do it. We could do something by hand or whatever. This is probably bad example as as a non-upholster.
02:37:02
Speaker
but it would take you five times longer and the outcome would be half as good. Well, if you had that Juki, you could do it faster and better. So now, you know, you spent the money on it, but now you can take on these other types of jobs. That's our Juki. So it's expanded your business. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, we edge banded that whole kitchen in an hour. Oh, how long would that have taken? We couldn't do it. Two days, three days. And the outcome would have been nowhere near as good.
02:37:33
Speaker
I don't even know if we could do it in three days, all the handwork afterwards. Yeah. And that's it. That's how, you know, as a small mom and pop shop, you know, what are you going to, you know, you gotta go with the debt. That's literally, you gotta make, you gotta make sure that, you know, you're going to be able, well, you got a gamble on yourself. Yeah. It's a gamble. Literally. But what else do you do? We could
02:37:57
Speaker
I think you've done well for yourself. So you're doing, you're doing pretty okay. This is, I mean, you know, this is an awesome shop. You got a cool setup. You're just missing that bar. It's coming soon. You can make one. What are we talking about? There you go. What we need is a nice, like big U shaped bankette right here. Put this table there. Really nice microphones.
02:38:21
Speaker
Really warm for the podcast. Some hair on the wall of something channeled backs to the ceiling. Oh, yeah. You can't really get a designer for channel
Education and Career Reflections
02:38:32
Speaker
back. That's it. Thinking about channeling the whole room. Actually, we'll get a, you know, we get concerts in here, everything to go music and get some pool noodles from a dollar store and stable into the wall. Yeah. One guy. That was an expression over at the old place. One guy, 10 minutes. Yeah.
02:38:50
Speaker
Oh, boy. I don't know that for me, your journey is like so spectacular. And I love that you've shared that journey with me from just like how you guys met. And, you know, like humble beginnings with, you know, starting off in like the restaurant industry and then like starting from your, you know, the backyard, the barn and then just seeing this like the fruit of your labor. And we were teachers.
02:39:16
Speaker
I know I love that. And I wanted to bring that up. Well, I think I did bring that up before that, like our connection, we have that history connection that we're not using their degrees. But I think, you know, for me, I definitely it educated me and I agree. It does. It's I mean,
02:39:33
Speaker
If you study history beyond high school history, which is, you know, all the, just the stupid numbers and dates and everything, it's ridiculous, really the curriculum, but you study it in a university. It gives you a, such a different outlook. And I guess you have to have that.
02:39:52
Speaker
that inside of you, that urge to look outside your own little world to take in all these other views. But that's what it did to me. It changed my whole world view. That and travel. I mean, you get your mind will just open up fully from that. I mean, it's just there's nothing better for someone who's closed minded than to just
02:40:14
Speaker
Take a trip somewhere new and like experience something comfortable with and sometimes that could be college. Yeah. Yeah, that's just a very broadening. That was the thing. I didn't see you sheltered. I was studying radio and television.
02:40:29
Speaker
you know, production and all this other stuff. And I had this history class. And I thought it would be a throwaway class. The history professor was just so cool and so enthusiastic and passionate about I said, wow, man, I never had a teacher like this before ever.
02:40:48
Speaker
So I wound up taking another one and that's how it came to me. I mean, I just, I always loved history and I had no idea. I mean, I think the education system in this country is so whacked out. It should be more like Europe where you have some time to actually travel.
02:41:07
Speaker
and kind of experience life a little bit to say, oh, this is what I want to get involved in. I would ever like 20 instead of oh, 18. Here you go. Here's your life. Yeah. Like what's the percentage of people who change majors once? It's got to be like.
02:41:22
Speaker
I mean, 5%. And then what's the people, you know, and then dwindle it down another sense to say, okay, what's the, you know, how many people use that actual degree, you know, you got to go back to grad school and grad school is never cheap. I mean, I know so many people that are in debt and they're like, Jim, I'm going to be paying this stuff off till I'm 50. That's crazy. That's, that's criminal. We've talked about this before, but several times we disagree with the whole setup and the mechanism of
02:41:50
Speaker
Yeah, the costs and I mean, that's why you just have to be smart with what you're choosing. But not many people at that age can. How can you be 18? Like, oh, I'll go to a school that's $50,000 because that sounds reasonable. You don't have the you don't have the wherewithal to make those decisions that are foisted upon you. It's like, can you see how impressionable grown adults are?
02:42:14
Speaker
Let alone a 17 year old kid, you know, you just you know what you're told is the right thing to do. Basically, I wish there was more trade schools out there that would help. I mean.
02:42:28
Speaker
a kid that works for me, his name's Aiden, shout out Aiden, Robert's grandson, he's the sweetest kid in the world, he just graduated, he's 18 and he wants to go to mechanic school, $38,000 a year. I said in a freaking mechanic school, I cannot believe it.
02:42:48
Speaker
So it's pretty mind blowing. But I mean, I went to a crappy little liberal arts school and I think it was 13000 at the time. So I got lucky there compared to others. Yeah, I think I was. It was in the 30s, I think. It's like over the top. I.
02:43:09
Speaker
I just like I freak out about how someone can like sign up for that. Like I have a couple clients that are in like their 60s and like they went back to school and they were older and they're like, yeah, Jim, I'm paying off my loans. I'm like your 65. What are you doing?
02:43:28
Speaker
I went back and graduated when I was 40. And but I paid off and all. Yeah. All right. Well, listen, this is part of what gives gets me all worked up about it. I was paying point nine percent interest. Wow. Yeah, I was not. Yeah, that's. And so this wasn't a long really. I mean, it was it's 23 years ago now when I graduated.
02:43:54
Speaker
I think it was seven or eight percent for me. That's not cool. Yeah, no, it's not. I'm thankful. Like, you know, my parents helped me. I think I paid like 30,000 of it off. And I mean, I was I was teaching. So I was living at home. I had. Oh, yeah.
02:44:11
Speaker
That's why I went back, you know, to get the full degree to teach. I was my first teaching job in New Jersey, $626 a week. Yeah, right. How are you going to pay off your loans or live in New Jersey? Or shape the minds of the youth, you know? Here, we're tasking you with this immensely important job. Have fun in the food stamps. And same, just kind of... Couple of hundred bucks a week. I'm like, man, I can't live.
02:44:41
Speaker
Yeah, I you know, history teachers were easy to come by when I was like 10 years ago when I was trying to be a teacher and like you just find them anywhere. I mean, there was some like, I mean, Catholic schools, Muslim schools, like whatever. I didn't care. I just wanted a job and like they want to give you less than 30K a year. And you're just like, holy crap. Yeah. Well, those there were all those starter schools in Newark, the Charters. Oh, yeah. Those and.
02:45:11
Speaker
nightmare stories, man. Yeah. And the pay was low, too. Yeah. And you got to stay till like four or five o'clock. Yeah. Yeah. Long days. Oh, it's miserable. I thought the urban schools are supposed to pay better. Well, these were the public schools. Yeah. These were these charter schools. Yeah. I worked in one in Patterson. Just terrible. Like just it was more of a business platform. And like the peak, you know, the administration, quote unquote, CEO would always be like,
02:45:41
Speaker
looking at you making sure you know everything was being done right it's just like oh boy yeah that's why i became a teacher right very micromanaged right i like the supervision yeah i'm i'm so grateful that i had this so i kind of jump into and i kind of knew that i had this and like i don't want you know i knew my dad was older and he wanted to keep it going and he just wasn't ready to you know
02:46:09
Speaker
back away from it.
Family Events and Business Decisions
02:46:10
Speaker
And literally the whole, I guess the moment that changed my life, we were in the car in the summertime because I would help him in the summer. I'd go on vacation for like a month and then come back and deal a month with him. And my mother had just got hurt. She had fallen and broke her shoulder. So they put her shoulder on backwards. What? Yeah. So like lifting her arm is like really pain in the ass thing. Yeah.
02:46:39
Speaker
Yeah, she like slipped on their kitchen floor and like that was it so and my mom was running the business at that point. She like ran the like shout out to my mom. She like ran the business when my dad was sick with cancer while you know being his nurse and everything and Robert was a part of it too and he did such a great job and continues to I mean I don't think you can get you know a better employee slash friend like lifelong friend and just
02:47:08
Speaker
part of the family, honestly, because he's so passionate about his work. And because both of us are so passionate, we're just able to kind of gel together and do these extraordinary projects at such a high clip because we're trying to grind away and make a better future for both of us. So it's been really cool.
02:47:31
Speaker
But yeah, after my mother, you know, after that, my dad's like, Hey, I'm 72. And I'm like, this is it's too much. And at that point, I stepped in. It was the slowest August that I think I've ever gone through in the business. And I was like,
02:47:50
Speaker
the hell am i doing what the frick did i call my mom like what the hell like you didn't tell me it's gonna be like this so you know i'm thankful that i'm you know able to go back and ask them for any pointers or whenever i have issue but
02:48:07
Speaker
you know i don't really need their help anymore i mean i'm grateful for the help that they give me but anytime i need it like they're always there but you're helping them well yeah but uh it's uh it's truly intense like my parents never thought we'd do the business we you know we've been doing but even before that they've they've done like their biggest project they did like 500 chairs for bowman's axe building that's a lot yeah that was and it was
02:48:31
Speaker
Well, I did part of it in the summertime, but it was just Robert and my mom and dad doing 500 chairs.
Large Projects and Business Operations
02:48:41
Speaker
It's like the salt boxes. It's like an entire year's worth of work, I feel like. It's pretty insane, right? I think that was like three months. So we would do it in sets of 25s to be 25s, 25s and like, you know, going back and forth.
02:48:55
Speaker
And it was such a pain in the ass because we didn't have the correct COI. They're like, they wanted $2 million worth of insurance for like picking up. We're just dropping off chairs. Literally.
02:49:06
Speaker
We're doing work there again for the Royal Bank of Canada and that same building and the same thing. Like you need like two million dollars worth of. We had some issues with that. Yeah, specifically Jersey City Hoboken. Yeah, they're real. I mean, it's just like I'm going to pick up a couple of positions like that much umbrella coverage. Like I'm sorry. Like this is not possible. Like if you I always tell them like you threw the chair and it went through the window and then it fell down.
02:49:31
Speaker
and then hit the clean. I've done that a couple of times. I'm like, Hey, if you could bring the, uh, peace out, leave it there and I'll just randomly happen to be there and we'll pick it up. So that happens a lot. Um, it's like, no, I'm off the clock. I'm not working right now. I'm just doing a favor for somebody, but that guy, 25 favors.
02:49:52
Speaker
That guy through that company that we did that work with, became a great friend. He's got a company called SKM in Long Island City. And he, I don't know, he knew somebody or just maybe did great work in one hand, like one person to one person. He's the contractor of that Goldman Sachs building, as well as we've done work for like Google and YouTube.
02:50:19
Speaker
and he's the contractor for that Chelsea Market building as well as like the Nike building that we do work for that he's so he's really hooked us up with all these interesting people and also just different restaurants in the city um one on Saks Fifth Ave like all this crazy stuff this
02:50:36
Speaker
restaurant on Saks Fifth Ave. They had a designer come in from France to French place called Le Avenue and they decided to use untreated leather. So on all of their seating and like it's just like after a year it just looks like someone peed on everything and they paid all this money for like you know fine Italian leather and like all these French beautiful pieces and
02:51:02
Speaker
Just all ruined. So it's that's the one thing you got to worry about with some people that like don't know their stuff. Some of the like the bright ideas they made. Yeah, well, it's good on the sample tray. Well, just some designers that like they they like they are like newer into the industry or don't know. Like, well, like that's like a rookie mistake. Holy crap. That's like huge. Like trying to push the boundaries, but taking off a bite, a too big of a bite.
02:51:28
Speaker
Yeah, and unfortunately that will bite you in the long run because they paid, you know, six, seven figures to get all of this furniture. It wasn't just they got it reupholstered, they bought this furniture and shipped it from France. So, but yeah, and then to end on like,
02:51:44
Speaker
my dad with the business, he literally was just like, hey, the business is yours. We're in the money machine, AKA the minivan. That thing has made so much money. They got in the clunker deal in 2008, so he got the financial assistance of $4,500 from the government, and then he got money from Chrysler, and then he got money from the bailout. So it was the bailout into Chrysler, and it was $9,000 or $10,000.
02:52:14
Speaker
I think that van was $16,000. Wow. And everybody always looks at us like, you're going to pick up my shit in that. I'm like, yeah, I'm going to pick it up in that. That is my money machine. Yeah, this is my I used to feel like a soccer dad and that thing when I started like when I started running the business for my parents when they were still running the shop in like my early 20s. When I got back from college, I was like, I'm a freaking loser. You know, what the hell am I doing? We used to pull up in a U-Haul van. Yeah.
02:52:44
Speaker
Hey, I still, you know, like those big projects, like I have to get a U-Haul and that's okay. I needed probably a truck like you guys, honestly. But the minivan's great. The seats just fold down and like you just, you know, you can fit a sectional in there.
02:53:00
Speaker
I know a couple of guys who are like, you know, carpenters, cabinet makers who drive minivans. Yeah, you got to do. I mean, the seats just go down into it and boom. So I have a guy like if I ever have an appliance that that I'm getting rid of, I call this guy. He like fix them up and gives them to people who need them. And he's got a minivan. He's like, I could fit four by eight sheet of plywood like he he literally has a sheet of plywood in the back. He's he like throws of a washing machine back there.
02:53:27
Speaker
That's literally, I mean, I can't, so the minivans moved me in and out of college, moved my friends in and out of their places. You know, it's just, it's funny how much you can fit in there. And if not on top works too, unless you got a bank cut, that would be weird.
02:53:44
Speaker
That's funny. A 43 footer. Yeah. No, thanks. That wouldn't be fun. I can't remember the bank. Oh, I'm I delivered the bank at from and that fit in the red ones. They fit in the car. Well, I don't I don't understand how those fit, but those are big. Yeah. Just kind of put the red flag on it. So pretty cool stuff.
Podcast Conclusion and Promotions
02:54:05
Speaker
Well, we're about to take over the three hour mark. I think I'm good, man. So we should wrap it up. It was wonderful. I loved. Oh, wow. Four o'clock, five o'clock. We knew this was going to run. Did you? I had a feeling. Yeah. Hey, man, I like to talk and, you know, it's always cool talking to you guys and it's it's always neat just like learning about. Yeah, we're going to have your back. Yeah. Oh, for sure.
02:54:28
Speaker
If you have other guests that would even make it better, like just like other woodworkers that you'd want to get on, like at the same time, that'd be cool. Like a round table discussion. We got one more mic. Yeah. Okay. We've done a couple, uh, with four people. Okay. We might get a designer in here. And somebody, I mean, to get both of us to get two, actually three takes from the industry.
02:54:52
Speaker
Yeah. Yeah. Well, Jacqueline's got the top spot for episode right now, so yours isn't out yet. You could take the top spot. I don't know with my rambling if I'll take the top spot, but I'll sure try. People love it. The longer the episode, the better. Yeah. They feel like they're getting their money's worth. Oh boy. Well, I hope I, I don't know if I taught anybody about anything about upholstery, but, uh, you know, it was, uh, it's definitely a neat industry to learn about and, uh,
02:55:17
Speaker
I think it's cool because I don't know if people have been exposed to it as much, at least our audience, especially as woodworkers, cabinet makers. It's actually very beneficial for us to get a glimpse at any of these other trades that we work with, just to better understand.
02:55:37
Speaker
Yeah, just getting an idea. I mean, honestly, look at the bankets we've created. I mean, you've gotten better, like, time-wise at making them, I'm sure. And just like, it's just like you perfect certain things that, you know. Yeah, just figured it out. I mean, we were like way overbuilding them in the beginning. We probably still are overbuilding them. But, you know, we found... That's our style. Yeah, we just found... As long as the customer likes it, that's all we care about. Yeah.
02:55:59
Speaker
We just don't want a failure. You know what I mean? That's the whole thing. The legs killed. I know. You were so upset. I was like, come on, man. Like that's how, you know, out of the six years in business, I've heard it all. Like someone literally sued my parents.
02:56:17
Speaker
because they like, there was, you've seen in some videos that I've posted like the, you know, deteriorating sand in there. That's the foam and like clients will literally like be like, Oh, leave the foam. But if, you know, in that sense, we couldn't leave the foam because it was deteriorating. And this was my dad running the business about 10, 12 years ago. And it was just one inch piece of foam on it. And my dad replaced it with a high end piece of blue foam. It was nice.
02:56:42
Speaker
The woman sued. My dad said you replaced the phone when you shouldn't have. The phone was falling apart. My dad couldn't do anything about it. That's insane. Yeah. The woman wanted double the money back from what the couch was. And like she bought and suffering. She bought this couch cushion into the courthouse. Thankfully, we're a block from the courthouse and we're just like, what? Like and the you know, the judge is like, what the hell? Like get out of here. So I mean, you know, it's just you deal with stuff like that in business. So.
02:57:12
Speaker
Not bad. Anyway, tell everybody where they can find you on social media. All right. So we're at Jamal upholstery. So it's at Jamal J M M A L underscore upholstery U P H O L S T E R Y. Well, there we go. I got it. We got to read it off your shirt. I should have probably done the same thing.
02:57:35
Speaker
established 1963 we got some cool shirts if anybody wants to buy them they're on sale I also honestly I give them away to the customers if they like spend a certain amount of money so I'm like spend a certain amount of money and you get a free t-shirt they feel like they're getting one over on me I guess but people love a freebie
02:57:54
Speaker
Check out the newest postings. No, you're having we got. Yes. So we're making like a a. Oh, God, a bolt. What do you call it? Like a bolt, say textured chair right now.
02:58:14
Speaker
Um, that we've been working on. So we're working on two modern ones that you just kind of saw the new webbing. I wanted to take a picture today of the bank cap, but they're like, no, we're having professionals come in. Like, I hate that. And I'm like, this is so stupid. Like this for me, like, I'm like, I'm just trying to put, you know, so, you know, I'm just trying to build up my phones, you know, showing people what we can do. And they're like, no, we got to wait for the professionals. I'm like, I mean, that's impressive. We had it all together and the shop is 70 feet. It's more than half the width of the shop. I mean, it's huge.
02:58:44
Speaker
I don't know if my dad's ever done a bankette that big. And I was like, yeah, this may be the biggest one we've ever done. And it was it was pretty epic there. I like working with those guys. They give us some jobs. It's just it's just a roller coaster getting there like most clients. Yeah. Tell them to get us some meal passes. They only change the size.
02:59:04
Speaker
Four times, right? Yeah, oh my God. 43, 42, 47. And I went down last night to see them and they're like, oh, it's too big. And I'm like, it's because we didn't put it together yet. And I'm like, don't worry about it. And I'm like, you know, if anything, I'll cut it down. And I'm like, this is stupid. We don't need to cut this down.
02:59:23
Speaker
That's our, that's our alarm going on. Just to get the hell out of Dodge. All right, man. All right. Well, thanks for having me on again. Yeah. Thanks for coming on. At Jamal upholstery. If you need it, Jersey city, tri-state area, central Jersey, we're out. Get them out. Detroit, California, wherever. Petaluma. Yeah. Sausalito. Especially if you're giving me a spot to stay in Sausalito. Yeah. Then I'll come. I'll even pay for my flight.
02:59:46
Speaker
Well, thanks Jim. Thanks everybody for listening. Take care. As always, Rob and I thank you for tuning in and we'll see you next week. If you want to help support the podcast, you can leave us a review on Apple podcasts. Again, we appreciate your support. Thanks for tuning in.
03:00:20
Speaker
change.