Mattress manufacturer and retailer McRoskey Mattress Co., which has headquarters in San Francisco, reached across San Francisco Bay to San Rafael, California, in November to open its first pop-up store.
During the first weekend of operation, McRoskey held a Breakfast in Bed celebration at the storefront, where customers enjoyed local pastries and beverages while trying the beds.
The temporary showroom is meant to better serve McRoskey customers in the North Bay area, but thanks to its location on a popular vacation route, the store also is attracting shoppers from across the Bay Area, said Kaytea Petro, marketing manager.
That said, with traffic in San Francisco worsening, the San Rafael pop-up is meant to give shoppers, who increasingly are shopping online rather than driving to the company’s store in San Francisco’s commercial district, the opportunity to try out the beds in person.
“The most important thing we do is foster great relationships with our customers,” Petro said. “This is why we make everything to order and invite our customers to tour our factory and learn more about what we do. We felt that we could better foster those relationships through this novel methodology.”
The pop-up, located in San Rafael’s business district, opened Nov. 4 and is slated to close at the end of February. However, plans could change and the company could choose to have a permanent store in San Rafael.
The attractive, minimalist brick-and-mortar showroom is an experiment, Petro said. “We’re using it to plot our strategy for the future. Will we keep it, or open additional pop-up showrooms throughout the Bay Area? Maybe we’ll have a mobile showroom—like the ‘traveling salesroom’ our company operated in the 1950s. We are currently capturing our learning from the pop-up on a weekly basis, and applying any new best practices across our other stores.
“The other part that is very exciting for me and our whole executive team is that we may be 118 years old but we have the nimbleness and willingness to experiment and see what will work. Our mattresses have to be perfect, but everything else, we can experiment with.”
McRoskey’s flagship San Francisco store has been open since 1924. The company opened a Palo Alto storefront and a small showroom at its factory more recently.
According to Robin McRoskey Azevedo, the company’s third-generation owner and chief executive officer: “As both a maker and seller of luxury mattresses, what differentiates McRoskey is our sales and service experience. A retail presence in San Rafael will allow North Bay customers to enjoy this service in person and to try mattresses before buying.
