Well Done That Boy! A Houston feel-good story

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AnotherFairportfan
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Well Done That Boy! A Houston feel-good story

Post by AnotherFairportfan »

From ESQUIRE:

Let's Hear It for the Mattress King of Houston
Charles P. Pierce/Aug 29, 2017 wrote:Anyone who's glanced at the electric Twitter machine since the sky began to fall on southeastern Texas has become familiar with Jim McIngvale who, under the name of Mattress Mack, owns the Gallery Furniture chain of stores in Houston.

Mattress Mack has opened a couple of his stores for people displaced from the storm to come and rest and sleep on his inventory.

Admit it. When you were a kid, and your parents dragged you out with them to buy a new couch, you wondered how easy it would be to hide in a furniture store and sleep on one of the beds overnight. From the Houston Chronicle:
A message from a store representative stated that they would be allowing families to use the store as shelter from Harvey. The store is putting out a call for kennels to accommodate pets. Gallery Furniture, according to the release, is stocked with food, water and mattresses. Each store can accommodate a few hundred people comfortably.
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"Houstonians have a safe, dry place to take shelter at Gallery Furniture so if they can get here they are welcome," said owner Jim "Mattress Mack" McIngvale in the release. "We hope to give them some comfort in this incredibly difficult time."
Mattress Mack apparently is one of those local businessmen known for his eccentric promotional sense. Two years ago, to celebrate his 63rd birthday, he bet his customers that the Houston Astros wouldn't win 63 games. They won 70. The bet reportedly cost him over four million dollars. A 2016 promotion on the results of the presidential election reportedly cost him over $10 million. Now, though, he's betting long on his fellow citizens, which is pretty much the living definition of citizenship.

Well-played, Mattress Mack.

That Astros bet was dumb, though.
One thing that i heard in a report on NPR earlier that this article misses is that {if i was hearing correctly - i only caught the last part} the stores are designed for floods; they're all on elevated concrete footings. I think that the NPR story said or at least implied that they are, in fact, designed with the possibility of being used as disaster shelters as a given.

Flood being pretty much the most likely Houston disaster.
Proof Positive the world is not flat: If it were, cats would have pushed everything off the edge by now.
ShneekeyTheLost
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Joined: Tue Jul 31, 2012 4:45 pm

Re: Well Done That Boy! A Houston feel-good story

Post by ShneekeyTheLost »

Compare and contrast with Best Buy who, apparently 'accidentally', ended up charging some crazy prices for cases of bottled water.
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Hansontoons
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Re: Well Done That Boy! A Houston feel-good story

Post by Hansontoons »

I stopped by the I-45 location Saturday morning to get replacement prices on a couple of couches that got wet. Mack was at the entrance to the parking lot directing traffic, shoppers one way and people coming for help another. The man cannot sit still! He had a huge cooker fired up to serve BBQ and people handing out water and supplies to a long line of folks affected by flooding.

I still remember his early commercial where at the end, he grabbed a handful of money from a back pocket, jumps up and says "Gallery Furniture saves you money!" His original store was made up of three or more houses connected by passageways, going through was like entering a warren- left me claustrophobic and thinking "firetrap".

Now it is a huge building that showcases his accomplishments and eccentricities. Almost worth the stop just to experience. The sales force seems less aggressive than they used to be, I don't get the feeling any more that they will fall over and grab your leg if you try to leave the store without buying something. Mack did have a reputation as a hard taskmaster from what I had heard.
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