The Pies have a 40-yard roll-off Dumpster that costs $800, and sometimes it gets filled three times a month with styrofoam and boxes, Steve said. While costs have shot up on their end, the waste management business is booming. It's, take them off the truck, unpack them out of the box, set them up with screws and a drill and dispose of the garbage. “It used to be all assembled,” Steve said. Steve added that retro comes and goes, but a shift that has added time, labor and unexpected expenses has been how furniture arrives now versus years ago. “And styles, we sold a lot of colonial, and now we sell a lot more modern styles.” “Freight rates have changed, insurance, overhead,” Phil said. They thought back to what has changed over the years, and certainly, costs have been a big one. He eventually returned and decided to help his dad, who turns 80 in May. He went off to pursue a business degree at Plattsburgh State College, and something drew his attention to working on a cruise ship - he had visions of “Love Boat” - and went aboard to work as a Blackjack dealer and then worked around Nevada in casinos building a career as a card dealer. It was a similar crooked path for Steve, who didn’t immediately return from college to join the family business. Phil has been the friendly face of Max Pies for the last 53 years. Business must have been good for longevity: his grandfather worked until he died at 93, and the same for his father until he was 83. After his Uncle Jake died, he ended up returning to Batavia and worked alongside his dad, Sam. Phil was married with two children, Steve and Natalie, and living in Sacramento, Calif. And then my uncle was here at the time, and my dad.” “I went to college, then I was in the Air Force. But the furniture, even though we do flooring here as well, the original furniture store Max Pies name started right here.”Īnd they both must have just naturally fallen right in line with the business, yes? Rochester Linoleum bought out all of the flooring aspects. “They went all over the board from Rochester to Buffalo, and I think even close to Syracuse at one point in the 80s. But the original location and their house were in the parking lot you pulled into,” Steve Pies said. Obviously, they added on to the store since 1905. “As far as this structure and this business from this location, it’s the same location. And there’s no other place they would have continued the tradition that began for furniture and flooring sales. No wonder they have earned the Chamber of Commerce Business of the Year Award. Founder Max Pies and family built not only a small business but also their home, and the place was handed down to now Steve, the fourth generation of the Pies family. Yet despite that and the typical ups and downs of retail business, Max Pies Furniture has endured 118 years since its settling into that comfy spot at the end of Jackson Street in 1905. Those have been some of the challenges being situated in a fairly remote - and animal-friendly - section of the city in Western New York for Phil and Steve Pies over the years, Steve says. Squirrels, a dead-end street across from an elementary school, and the four seasons.
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |
AuthorWrite something about yourself. No need to be fancy, just an overview. ArchivesCategories |