Retail: Layoffs coming at Restoration Hardware
81 layoffs come as Restoration Hardware re-brands
Restoration Hardware plans to lay off 81 employees, including several senior executives, at the year’s end, the North Bay company told a state agency.
The cuts come as the high-end, home-furnishing retailer, which now calls itself RH, turns its focus to incorporating dining, wine and coffee bars into some locations. In September, it opened a five-building development in Yountville that features a restaurant and wine vault. The company also has plans in the works for another store restaurant combination called RH Gallery in Corte Madera, according to filings with the Marin County town, and it leased space for a San Francisco store at Pier 70 in 2016.
Among those being cut are seven vice presidents, three senior vice presidents, six directors and two senior directors, and seven senior leaders, Carrie Cassidy, the company’s chief people officer, wrote in a Nov. 2 letter filed with the California Employment Development Department, a notice required by state labor law. Seventyone of the employees who will be let go
are at the company’s headquarters in Corte Madera, and 10 employees are located in Pleasanton.
The senior vice president cuts include the chief creative officer, and those overseeing quality and innovation, and sourcing and quality.
Restoration Hardware did not respond to requests for comment.
The company employed 5,200 workers as of February, the end of its last fiscal year, with roughly 2,200 people based in its stores, a corporate filing shows. The company didn’t disclose how many of the remaining 3,000 employees work out of the Corte Madera corporate office.
The company sells furniture, decor and home goods, operating 85 retail stores and 36 outlet stores in 32 states, the District of Columbia and Canada, according to its most recent corporate filing.
There is no indication that Restoration Hardware plans to close retail stores or lay off sales clerks during the holiday shopping season. Job postings show the company is hiring for various positions in the Bay Area.
Construction of the Pier 70 store, originally projected to open in 2017, was supposed to be completed in September, according to Nibbi, the project’s general contractor. That store has not yet opened, according to Restoration Hardware’s website. The company has a San Francisco store in Showplace Square.
Restoration Hardware spent much of 2018 focusing on “revolutionizing physical retailing,” as CEO Gary Friedman wrote in a letter to investors when the company reported its secondquarter earnings in September. In addition to the Yountville development, the company opened RH Portland, RH Nashville and RH New York during fiscal year 2018, and it is integrating restaurants into retail locations it calls galleries.
Three of the company’s four restaurants were trending to generate $5 million to $6 million annually, and the fourth was expected to pull in $4 million a year, Friedman wrote.
Restoration Hardware is gearing up for a “product and brand expansion strategy” in 2019, with plans to increase investment in RH Interior Design and development of RH Beach House and RH Color, according to Friedman’s letter.
The company is expected to report its third quarter earnings Dec. 4.