UNCLE ED’S
After 40 years in business, partners call it quits
After 40 years of selling furniture and overcoming a major fire, an independent business shutting down.
Manfred Arnold and Bernie Stachniak aren’t about to sit on the couch all day after their store closes later this year.
“I have a lot of hobbies, some I haven’t been spending much time with, and I will now,” said Arnold, coowner of Uncle Ed’s Furniture along with Stachniak.
“The biggest thing will be not working Saturdays anymore,” added Stachniak. “Having Saturdays to yourself will be huge.”
The pair are closing the venerable furniture store after 40 years in business.
Back in 1974 Famous Furniture City decided to open a clearance centre (Uncle Ed’s) and they put Arnold in charge.
“I have been here since Day 1,” Arnold said.
He and Stachniak became owners in 1991.
One of the defining moments in the business was a spectacular fire in October 1996 that destroyed their original location in the Ashdown Building on First Avenue.
“It was awful,” Arnold said. “They phoned me at home. I went down to the building and there was no sign of the fire anywhere.”
But that soon changed and the structure was consumed by massive flames.
They found a place down the block and started selling out of the warehouse portion of the building until they had renovated the 17,000- square- foot showroom.
Living room furniture and bedroom suites have been their bread and butter over the years.
“And having it in stock,” Stachniak said. “We do a huge rural trade. When they are here, they want to take it home, not come back in six or eight weeks.”
Customer service didn’t take a back seat either, they said.
“Outsell the rest, but look after that customer once you have made the sale,” Stachniak said. “We do repeat business. You go to any of those big box stores and they don’t know what that means.”
“We didn’t realize until the last couple of days how much people thought of the store,” added Arnold.
“People from Harris came in and said they had been buying here for 30 years and so had their kids,” he said. “They said, ‘ Where will we go now?’ ”
The two could have continued on for a few years but an offer to buy the building was just too good for them to pass up.
They are holding a closing out sale until all of their stock is gone.