By Dirk Smith, M.Sc, SDL (He/Him)
In the world of sports, one of the most important things you can do to improve your training and competitive performance is to get a good night’s sleep. Our managing editor David “Dirk” Smith caught up with Nevada Bedding & Design Center’s head honchos, Bruce and Victor to get a preview of what they will be showing off this January at the Sin City Classic and what a good quality mattress can do to help you get the rest you need.
David Smith
So, tell me a little bit about yourself, Nevada Bedding & Design Center as a company and what got you started in this business?
Bruce Burke
A little bit about the company, what I did was I took three small manufacturing companies, two of them were mattress, one of them was upholstery and I merged them into Nevada Bedding & Design Center. That was probably about three years ago and at that time, we tried to keep all the companies separate but we also wanted to get a loyal brand and more client focus. So, in January of this year, we converted everything to one company under one umbrella, everything is branded the same way. The service level is either me or Victor will get involved with anything and go from there.
Victor
Victor runs all the operation and marketing, while I run all the financials, major decision-making kind of stuff. We had a friend who was invested in our upholstery businesses, and we were looking for another business to buy besides upholstery. That’s why we decided to buy mattresses because it looked like a good fit, and it’d be complete home furnishings.
David Smith
Awesome. That leads right into my next question. You specify custom mattress manufacturing, as well as upholstery restoration, custom furniture, things like that. Can you tell me more about what specifically you offer in that regard?
Bruce Burke
Relating to custom mattresses, I’m with the philosophy that I’m not a person that wants a bed in the box. I want to be able to pick the fabric, I want to be able to pick the type of foam, gel foam, memory foam, etc. I want to be able to customize that mattress and that’s why we went more towards customization as opposed to straight out of the box like a Sealy or Simmons. That’s one of the reasons and, we sleep seven or eight hours a day, some, like me, sleep four or five. You’re there for a period and you really don’t need an inexpensive mattress just because it’s $200 off the shelf or $200 in a box. You need a quality mattress that’s affordably priced which is why we want the customization of it. We do a lot of customization if someone wants, and we have a lot of older clients that do the adjustable beds that go up and down. We made mattresses for them. Also, clients where the husband may want one type of mattress and the wife wants another type of mattress. Since they’re segregated, they may choose different mattresses for them.
David Smith
What about upholstery restoration, and customized furniture?
Bruce Burke
So, a lot of people have furniture they like but it might be worn out, they may just need fabric replaced. Some people might’ve had their grandfather’s chair since they were a kid and they really like it, but it’s got fabric from the 1950s on it and they want to upgrade it; we do that for them. You keep the integrity of the chair, and you change the fabric to make it more modern looking. We have a lot of people that go into RH Restoration Hardware and want a $20,000 sofa but we can turn around and make them an $8000 to $10,000 sofa instead. Different materials, same fabrics, that kind of stuff. So, it comes down to what the clients are looking for and we work with a designer, who comes in. The client wants the couch to match the drapes to match the bedspread to match the headboard, etc. They want everything to match, and we do that kind of stuff.
David Smith
I feel like makes you kind of a fabric connoisseur then where you can basically do just about anything you can with fabric. Do you offer any other services like that as well?
Bruce Burke
Yeah, we do anything related to fabric, we have a pet line, and we also make our own pillows. Everything from bed pillows to body length pillows to throw pillows. Someone wants a specific throw pillow for their couch, they found the fabric for it, and they want us to craft them some pillows out of it. So, we do that for them. We also make customized RV mattresses and stuff for campers.
David Smith
Fantastic. It’s interesting that you bought three different types of businesses to bring them under one umbrella so that you can have such a strong offering. Was there any inspiration to do that, or any motivation particular to bring these three specific businesses all together?
Bruce Burke
My whole thing today, I think customer service is lost and my goal is to bring back the “service” level of customer service. So, if you call me or call Victor, you get a response. You don’t have an “I’m sorry, please wait 48 hours or two days, and we might get you back with you. We might send you an email, we might not. We might send you a postcard we might not.” When our clients come on the weekends, we pick up the phone and say, “hey, how are you? We’re not in the office. Now. Can we call you back on Monday, if you need something over the weekend, we can help? “Just this past weekend, I came into the office, and we had delivery for one of our clients. We’re small enough that we’re not a large corporation so we can offer that additional service.
David Smith
Yeah, that’s important. That extra little level of customer service is not very common nowadays. So, it’s nice to see you’re working on bringing it back. So, switching gears a little bit. You’re based in Las Vegas, but as you said you’re from Columbus, Ohio? Both towns have a rich history of organizing and hosting LGBTQ+ sports events, such as the Sin City Classic and Columbus just recently hosting the Gay Softball World Series. Can you tell me a little bit about your involvement with the LGBTQ+ sports community?
Bruce Burke
Sure. I’m more involved with the Columbus community personally, I would attend the games at Beulah Park and it’s it was just an experience and a way to get out and see everybody outside of the bar scene. It’s more of a health conscious, high energy type environment in Columbus and we have a significantly large gay community in Columbus that is well structured. It’s a Midwest value town, Midwest everything. So, I think that helps with the sports because we were all raised on either football or baseball, then suddenly, you can’t do it because you’re gay. But now you can do it and suddenly there’s another four teams out there. They’re doing it. So, we participate with what we have we make friends as we go along.
David Smith
Do you play any sports yourself?
Bruce Burke
No, not anymore. I’m above 50 so I don’t participate in anything like that. I’ll break a leg, or a hip and I’ll be gone. I enjoy it and I help where I can with the teams and the individuals on the teams. But I don’t participate in the actual gameplay itself. The thought of getting tackled by a bunch of 20-year-old doesn’t sound as much fun as it used to. I’m like, I’ll sit on the line and you guys will get some pizza or beer after.
David Smith
I like that plan. But we are going to be seeing you this January at the Sin City Classic! Can you give us a little preview of what the visitors and athletes will see when we get to meet you?
Bruce Burke
Good question. Victor, do you want to take that over?
Victor
Ready for that one. We will probably put something together like we normally do for our Home and Garden Show events or something like that. Just you know, we’re very upfront guys, we’ll be there for the team for whatever the case may be, and we’ll have an exhibit we’ll put together.
David Smith
Oh, fun! Yeah, there’s the opening festival, with a lot of vendors and people there. So, that’s always a great place just to be able to put something out there to show off and see what you’re all about.
Victor
We’ll get it together, we just finished up with the Latin Chamber of Commerce last week, and we did a silent auction of a mattress. We gave a $2,000 voucher for any customized mattress, including foundation for anyone in the Chamber to bid on that item. It was amazing. There was about 500 people there, it was nice. NBDC at the RIO
David Smith
Oh yeah, the with the Sin City Classic, it’s not going to be that big this year compared to past years, but it should bring out several thousand people so it’s definitely a great event to be at.
Bruce Burke
Everyone needs a mattress sooner or later or some sort of fabric work too.
David Smith
And you know, gay men like a good mattress. Is there any tips or red flags that you can share with us about selecting a good mattress or what we should look for when we’re shopping?
Bruce Burke
For me, one of the things that I like looking at is the firmness and the softness of it, see if I can support my weight. When you’re sitting down, you want to know how much of that bed is going to support you. Also, how big, or how small your sleeping space is to fit into your interior design space. The functionality usage in how you’re going to use the mattress. Also, if it’s going to be a Murphy bed, horizontal bed, etc. Also check for new materials and that its always made with new materials. We’ve come across several other manufacturers that recycle mattresses. There’s a large market here that takes casino mattresses and strips them down to just the springs and uses parts of the foam, parts of the material and uses the springs again and resells it. Everything that we get is 100% new. Everything is made in the United States.
David Smith
That’s something I never really thought about in Las Vegas, but you’re right, they have huge numbers of beds and hotel rooms. I didn’t really think about how they would go through and recycle those mattresses. So, it’s neat that you use new stuff as opposed to just recycling the crusty old mattresses.
Bruce Burke
That was one of the things and, how do I know it’s new? If you come on into our showroom, it’s attached to our manufacturing facility so you can come in and watch a mattress being made, you can see the materials from the shelves, you can see the fabric being sewn together, and you can see it all, which is cool. Some people like that because they get to, they get to meet the people who made their bed. So, it’s kind of its experience.
David Smith
They can watch their own mattress being made if they want! Neat!
Bruce Burke
That’s part of what we like about the client experience. We have that interaction or close, you know, and then it’s not just like, the anonymous part of the mattress. The client knows from our staff who manufactures the mattress, have them interact and get to know each other and create also that bond. It gets personal. How many people are going to sleep on that mattress is another point. Defining what “sleep” is in this situation.
David Smith
Not to mention price, delivery, and all that.
Bruce Burke
People often don’t understand that they see a Sealy Serta and it’s 50% off that, $3,000. Our top line mattress we made with the exact same materials is the most expensive mattress at $1200 or $1,700. That substantial markup on mattresses is unbelievable. So, we’ve marked ours up enough for us to make sure that we stay in business, our staff stays employed, we don’t gouge the customers. So, when we give a discount of $100 off a mattress or 10% off a mattress, it’s a significant savings for people because they think customization, they think “I can’t afford a $5,000 or $10,000 mattress.” Yeah, we’re not like that. So that’s something big that we push, we always say, “go to the website, look to see what you want then come in the showroom and check it out.” They’re often shocked by the pricing on our website.
David Smith
To be honest, I’m a little shocked too because the way that you described it, I was thinking, “oh, these mattresses are $5,000 to $10,000. But if you’re saying they run $1,200 to $1,700 for the high end. mattresses, that’s fantastic.
Bruce Burke
Because the markup on mattresses is substantial for the corporations, they can discount it 80% and still make a killing on it. We’re a small shop, so we price accordingly.
David Smith
Right. You have that brand loyalty to these big corporations where people can automatically pay more money for that without thinking twice about it.
Bruce Burke
They come in and say, “is this right?” We have a 36-hour manufacturing to delivery time frame. So, if you come in and say XYZ on Monday, by Wednesday, you’ll have it at your door. We’re a US manufacturing company that is supporting the local, diverse community. We do customize work for people’s homes, RVs, and pets. It’s a small shop, we don’t have hundreds of employees. We have 15 employees plus ourselves. So, it’s a tight knit family and we are moving forward to make sure everything is going in the right direction.
David Smith
Fabulous! We are looking forward to seeing you this January at the Sin City Classic! For more information about Nevada Bedding & Design Center, visit https://nbdc.vegas/
