We're cruising thru summer with great patio furniture
Summer is getting to its peak with father's day just past and fourth of July ahead of us. Lots of exciting things are happening in the company. Pool owners are calling for pool floats, toys, pool storage items. Patio and balcony owners are revamping their outdoor areas. Restaurants are remodeling their outdoors. It's all very exciting for us. Phones are ringing off the hook and our customer service reps are helping customers as best as they can. Vendors are having problems with heavy order volume and our vendor relations are pretty stressed out. So the bottom line is; we are very busy. But despite all the things that need to be done, I had to drive to Palm Beach Gardens on Friday to visit a customer and to witness a delivery. This is a commercial customer that's changing all their outdoor chairs in their restaurant to our new Aruba Wicker Restaurant Chair.
Drive up to Palm Beach was pretty quick. It's about 90 miles from Miami. I-95 was open all the way so I was there in less than an hour and a half. When I reached there the truck has already arrived and the chairs were being unloaded. After greeting the owner and the managers at the location I started helping with removing the old restaurant chairs that they had. They were classic looking woven wicker chairs with aluminum frames. Chairs seemed like a poor quality but from what I understand the owner has paid a good amount of money for them at the time. All chairs had bent legs, broken weaves, and unraveling wicker fibers. They looked horrible.
The owner of this upscale restaurant and bar visited our distribution center a week ago and chose the Aruba chairs over any other that was available. He said he wants people to be very comfortable and spend time on his restaurant. He said Palm Beach is laid back and people want to be comfortable. Aruba chair has a good size. Arms have a good fit which feels natural. The material looks like the woven chairs they had there before but this is a mono-block chair which means it will never unravel, the legs will never bend. There are no metal parts to rust or bend. Unlike the chairs they had before Aruba chairs stack. The owner of the restaurant said "This is perfect for us". I told them that this is our first installation of the Aruba chair which literally arrived the week before. Aruba chairs are available in white, brown and charcoal colors and is already a sensation among its first buyers.
Sometimes it's great to be able to see and talk to customers first hand, especially during an installation. It gives you the insight of what they need, what they want. I'm very happy I drove up here and I wish the Turnpike was not clogged up on the way back.
It's 4:00 pm on a Friday and I just walked in to the office. Bad traffic.