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Tuft & Needle set to open new Gilbert location

Posted at 8:54 AM, Sep 15, 2017
and last updated 2017-09-15 13:07:20-04

Phoenix-based Tuft & Needle made a splash in the mattress industry, by doing things their own way.  Now the company is set to expand both its physical footprint and product offerings.

Co-founder JT Marino gave a sneak-peek tour of the company’s new retail location in Downtown Gilbert, set to open September 18th.  A Grand opening celebration is set for September 23rd.  The location just off Gilbert Road is in the same block with Barrio Queen, Lo-Lo’s Chicken & Waffles, Zinburger and GrubStak, ensuring plenty of foot traffic.

The bare-bones store may be Arizona’s smallest mattress store, but that’s by design.  The three demo mattresses are the only ones in the entire store, divided by partitions of horizontal slatted wood to allow for privacy.  Potential customers are invited to take the company’s signature product for a “test spin.”  For those who order, the mattress is delivered within days by FedEx, shrunken into a golf-bag sized box.

The new store will also offer the company’s new products, a line of high-quality cotton sheets, and an easy-to-assemble bed frame made from repurposed walnut.

“I think we’re going to save some marriages,” says Levi Christiansen, who leads the design and development of hard goods at Tuft & Needle.  He’s referring to furniture sold by big box stores with complex instructions and dozens of parts.  Tuft & Needle’s new bed frame ($850 for queen, $950 for king) has just four bolts.  The slats connect to the frame with Velcro, preventing wood-on-wood or wood-on-metal noise, and the whole bed takes just minutes to assemble.  Christiansen says the research team focused on price, quality, height and aesthetics.  Available in limited quantities beginning on September 26th, the bed frame comes with a 12-year warranty.

Tuft & Needle’s new line of sheets uses Supeema cotton grown in the Southwestern U.S.  While thread count is the standard in bedding, the company is once again trying to turn industry norms upside down.  ASU grad Sarah Grindle from the company’s product team explains that while the T&N sheets have a lower thread count, they are made with a higher quality material, including reinforced French seams and strong elastic to make the fitted sheet easy to put on.  The sheets are designed for use with the deeper mattresses (especially deep ones, like those sold at Tuft & Needle), and the pillowcases come with deep pockets to stay on tight.  Grindle says the new line of bedding will be available in October in white with hopes to launch additional colors and possibly patterns in the future.

On September 23rd, the first 100 customers through the door at the Gilbert location’s grand opening celebration will receive a free T&N standard size pillow ($75 retail), and 100% of in-store sales that day will benefit “Furnishing Dignity,” and Arizona non-profit organization that collects and redistributes donated household furnishings.  Hours for the grand opening celebration are 10 a.m. to 1 p.m., but employees say they are expecting a line when they open their doors.