Photo by Seth Alwin Photo Works
Cream City Restoration, a vintage focused furniture and home goods shop, has been around in one way or another since 2014. The company started as an after-work hobby for owners Jason and Kelsey McGinnis, who began selling their refinished furniture to friends. The couple eventually established a pop up shop down the hall from their current space in St. Francis, and just recently set up regular hours for the operation.
The store sells vintage and American-made modern furniture as well as locally made home goods. Their current flagship product is a line of fully customizable furniture from Atomic Chair Company, based in North Carolina.
“I was looking at new product lines for the store and I found that many of the national brands have great marketing, but they aren’t very comfortable,” said Jason. “Their products aren’t something I would want to sit on and watch football for a whole Sunday.”
Photo by Seth Alwin Photo Works
Cream City hopes to continue expanding, and feature products from all over the Midwest. They aspire to become an outlet for local talent to get their work in front of a larger audience.
Before opening the store, Jason and Kelsey both held management positions at local businesses. Kelsey, whose interest in antiques goes back for years, managed restaurants in the area while being involved in both graphic design and photography. Jason was a supervisor for a large cleaning company. While they were both successful in their respective careers, neither felt completely satisfied.
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“I wanted my wife to enjoy going to work, so I told her to pick something that she loves and that she is passionate about and let’s go for it,” said Jason.
The growth of the business has been a slow organic process. During the first months, Jason worked 8-12 hours a day at the cleaning service, before coming home and spending his evenings refinishing furniture. The couple started with an initial $250 investment and has never taken out a loan.
“It’s amazing to see how far we’ve come in the two years since we bought our first set to refinish and flip,” said Jason.
The couple splits the heavy workload based on their strengths, even though the many responsibilities that come with running a rapidly growing company force their duties to overlap. Kelsey mainly works at the store and on marketing the brand, while Jason does most of the picking and restoring of the furniture.
Picking is an exhausting process that includes miles of travel and hours of physical labor. Jason spends 45-50 hours a week driving all over the country picking pieces for the store, and has put over 50,000 miles on his work van since he bought it on Good Friday of last year. Once he finds that perfect piece, refinishing it takes around three or four additional hours before it’s ready for sale
“If there’s enough meat on the bones, and it’s a good piece, I’ll go anywhere to get it,” said Jason. “I got a call last night about a rosewood credenza in central Illinois, and 20 minutes later I was on my way.”
Photo by Seth Alwin Photo Works
Kelsey first learned branding and marketing years ago through a management position at a snowboard shop, and continued to hone her skills through her roles in restaurants.
Social media has been the biggest tool Kelsey has utilized to spread the word about Cream City Restoration, and Facebook has been their biggest marketing channel. Flea markets, specifically Anodyne’s One Trick Pony, have also proven to be an effective tool for building a community of engaged shoppers.
“Facebook, along with good branding, has been the number one driving force behind our business,” Kelsey said. “We want to curate our brand and become a household name.”
Kelsey’s social media savvy and community building skills bore fruit one hectic day in June 2015. This was the day that marked the opening of their first pop up shop; the first time their fans were given the chance to browse and purchase their furniture.
“I don’t think we sat down all day,” said Kelsey.
From there the business grew so fast that Kelsey had to leave her restaurant job to devote her full attention to Cream City.
Photo by Seth Alwin Photo Works
After six months of irregular hours as a pop up shop, the couple established regular hours and threw a grand opening party in their current 1,250 square foot space. Movida, whom the self-proclaimed foodie couple cites as their favorite restaurant in town, catered the party.
Their expansion is still continuing rapidly, as Jason and Kelsey are preparing to move into the 4000 square foot space, currently housing a gym, directly next door in the coming weeks.
“We wanted a chance to expand, and we’ve already done that as much as we can here,” said Jason. “We can’t fit any more furniture,” Kelsey added.
Photo by Seth Alwin Photo Works
The goal for Jason and Kelsey is to be “the custom shop” as Jason says- to have unique and rare products that can’t be found anywhere else. They are also excited to embrace their potential roles as job creators for the community.
“We’ve both been in management positions at places that were not super fun jobs,” said Jason. “So it means a lot to us to be able to have a shop staff that’s like family and loves what they do.”
Still, the couple’s main focus is for Cream City Restoration to help people transform their houses into comfortable homes.
“What’s most exciting for us is when we go to make a delivery and we see three or four of our pieces in someone’s house, and it looks amazing. You can tell we made them happy,” said Jason.
