Just like your car.

Well, and I think, too, like, you know, before we get into all the flooring spiel about maintenance as well and different things, but when you take care of something and you really, like, they don't really build products as well as they used to.

I agree.

But if you're going to buy something that lasts, you are definitely going to pay a little bit more.

But you can buy one every 15 to 20 years, or you can buy kind of an okay one every three to five years.

Yeah.

And so the disposable aspect of that just really, yeah.

That, and that's maybe not as much square footage as... other places yeah but you can still finance it and that value is tremendous

That, and that's maybe not as much square footage as... other places yeah but you can still finance it and that value is tremendous

well and you know something like you know we'll just say a half bath typically is less than four feet by about six or eight feet so the the flooring itself is less than 40 square feet just for the floor wow and if you get a nice ceramic tile or a nice luxury vinyl plank or tile to put in there then waterproof then you're spending you know less than you know eight to ten bucks a square foot i mean you can get something really nice you can get something that just updates or you can get something that's just practical and so different price points um and then i've even some seen some where people will maybe tile the wall like behind the commode yes they'll kind of make it look a little nicer i mean you can only dress up a toilet so many ways you know you know yeah way But, you know, that's the thing is make something that's practical and functional so that it's easier to clean.

It's easier to maintain.

It looks presentable when people come over.

And then you let that kind of flow throughout the kitchen and the main level.

Yeah.

It's

Yeah, it

Now, do you delegate your yard work or do you do it?

No, that is my business.

I enjoy it.

Yeah, well, it's satisfying.

You're running through the yard.

You see your hard work.

You're like, you know, I fixed that little patch right there.

Is there one thing right now that people are, especially before the holidays, kitchens, baths, what are they doing?

Now, do you delegate your yard work or do you do it?

No, that is my business.

I enjoy it.

Yeah, well, it's satisfying.

You're running through the yard.

You see your hard work.

You're like, you know, I fixed that little patch right there.

Is there one thing right now that people are, especially before the holidays, kitchens, baths, what are they doing?

Don't even have to come in a store.

Well, I think one really cool thing is you've sent a lot of referrals in through the years and just, you know, that creates just a network of people that we're even able to say, oh, hey, if you need somebody, you know, Phil recommended this guy and we did some flooring for him.

But just kind of really cool how that happens.

And we can make it happen and make it flexible for you and your schedule and all those things.

And Frazier's, for the 70 years, has been able to do that.

Yeah, I mean, you always kind of want to be ready.

You want to be ready for, are we going to put our house on the market? Do we have, you know, events coming up? Do we have people who are going to gather in our home? How are we going to, you know, update this? And, you know, some of the quickest things are flooring and paint.

Yes.

Don't even have to come in the store.

Well, I think one really cool thing is you've sent a lot of referrals in through the years.

And just, you know, that creates just a network of people that we're even able to say, oh, hey, if you need somebody, you know, Phil recommended this guy and we did some flooring for him.

But just kind of really cool how that happens.

And we can make it happen and make it flexible for you and your schedule and all those things.

And Frazier's, for the 70 years, has been able to do that.

Yeah, I mean, you always kind of want to be ready.

You want to be ready for, are we going to put our house on the market? Do we have, you know, events coming up? Do we have people who are going to gather in our home? How are we going to, you know, update this? And, you know, some of the quickest things are flooring and paint.

Mm-hmm

...

this, this fall or fall and winter, you know, the rain, different things like that as the temperatures change, you want something that's durable so when you're walking in the house it's easy to clean.

You can just throw a little mat down and, and catch a lot of the droppings, things like that.

And, uh, so luxury vinyl plank, uh, especially, but also laminates, uh, those are gonna be easier to clean and maintain, more durable, uh, throughout those seasons.

Um, but so I, I'd say we're probably gonna be selling a lot of both of those.

The one, the LVP and the carpet.

Mm-hmm.

In, in the DIY part of it

... and I think, you know, having, you know, defining your space, that's, that's what you needed for that space.

That's what you wanted to do a- and I think that's what we try to continue to do here is, you know, how do you need your space to function? How do you need your space to look? How do you want it to look? And, and I think when we go into it, we, we, you get a little awestruck.

You walk in, you know, there's so many samples.

Mm-hmm.

How am I ever gonna find what I'm looking for? We ask you some basic questions.

Our design pros are gonna ask you some basic questions, and they're gonna get d- down to, okay, you're looking for style and color.

You're not actually looking for durability because this space is like a room off of the main area.

If you want to get everything in, out, ready to roll before you welcome the family and you're hosting those dinner parties and everything, this Columbus Day weekend sale is the time to do

it.

Avoid all the anxiety of trying to push it up the week before the holiday.

There are so many ways that we're trying to meet expectations and guidelines and We want to make things as easy as possible, and we know when you don't have to rush something, you feel like you got more value out of it.

You feel like you received just this five-star service, and our goal is – that's why we're trying to prep now.

We're trying to take that anxiety, that feeling of – My mother-in-law is coming over.

We've got to get this house in tip-top shape.

Why would you encourage a listener driving home right now to come see the state-of-the-art showroom? I know I could explain it, but Mitchell Parton, 4501 Western Avenue, what would make it ideal for that customer to do so?

We're so glad to have you.

When you walk in the door, it's like, hey, my name's BJ.

Hey, my name's Tony.

Hey, my name's Zach.

What kind of flooring are you interested in today? Awesome.

Oh, you just moved here? Oh, you just got a new puppy? Oh, you just had your first child? Oh, kids are going off to college? Here we go.

There's all of these things.

It's what it comes to when it comes to stretching that dollar to get the most out of

Well, a minute ago, you guys were measuring around me like measuring for a coffin.

Yeah, there's a trap door right below your feet.

I had no idea.

But you guys are constantly updating the showroom.

Yes, yes.

And there are a lot of things that just kind of continue to get thrown at you.

Right now, the designer focus is heavy on some color and some contrast.

And, buddy, you look like you know what you're doing.

And the Hawaiian food.

I mean, you know, a backsplash is a small detail that makes a large impact.

Yes.

And it adds value to your home, you know, kitchens, bathrooms, and just like areas where, you know, whether it's a family room or just kind of a library room, couches or chairs.

But people go into homes, they're potentially thinking about purchasing, and they look at, okay, is this area kind of ready for us? Did they put some effort in over here? Okay, yeah.

They did.

Okay, this is great.

Yeah.

And the Hawaiian food.

I mean, you know, a backsplash is a small detail that makes a large impact.

Yes.

And it adds value to your home, you know, kitchens, bathrooms, and just like areas where, you know, whether it's a family room or just kind of a library room, couches or chairs.

But people go into homes, they're potentially thinking about purchasing, and they look at, okay, is this area kind of ready for us? Did they put some effort in over here? Okay, yeah.

They did.

Okay, this is great.

Yeah.

Frazier's equals value.

Exactly.

And our goal is so that you don't walk in and see a bunch of tiny little four-inch by four-inch samples.

You try to pick the whole house based on that.

We've got... pallets of material we've got planks for you to take home look at in your light you know decide if it's the right thing be able to come back and purchase it same day and take it home with you if that's what you want yeah if you want um and if not you just call us and say hey brought it home love it now come out and measure yeah um and so our goal is uh to come out do our free and home estimate provide that measure get that taken care of first because you know like um we give estimates we give you know ballpark quotes and figures based on numbers But until we come out and measure, we can give you a true price or a real price, I like to call it, so that you're not thinking, oh, is it $6,000? Is it $8,000? Is it $400? Is it $900?

And seeing more and more of hardwood and carpet together, Mitchell

Parton.

And, you know, when you walk in our showroom, that's kind of exactly how we have it set up.

No charge.

So I'll answer a question we get a lot in is, well, do people still install carpet? Well, yes, we still install carpet, particularly in the bedrooms, you know, in the lower traffic areas where you want something cozy.

You get up in the morning, it's nice and warm underfoot.

You know, we do a lot of hardwood installation.

We do a lot of vinyl plank and tile installation.

And the nice thing is you can kind of combo it.

So you can have your whole main level.

That way they took the guesswork out of dozens.

Which brings us to Frazier's.

Absolutely.

You know, and I think that's where there is that craving where you, you know, yes, you can go to Amazon or, you know, online and shop for a lot of different things, daily needs, basics, sometimes things that aren't super original, but are, you know, you went on vacation and they had this in the hotel lobby or they had this in the hotel room.

And so, you know, you take a picture of it and you figure out where it's at.

But the satisfaction of coming to a flooring store, you know, feeling the soft carpet, the Berber carpet.

I mean, you talked about that blue Berber for a long time.

And I hope you've enjoyed it as much as you should have.

What's happening this Saturday?

Okay.

So it's something new.

We've never been done before.

So we're just trying it out.

We've got a lot of product in the warehouse that we've been stocking for years.

And as they are starting to grow a little old and new styles and new selections and new colors and things are coming in, I just want to throw it on the sidewalk so people can put their eyes on it.

So we've got a plan.

Yeah, you come get it and take it.

Mm-hmm.

I think it was just a question of how impactful it would be on performance and how soon, and it was, it seemingly has been pretty impactful pretty soon.

We saw, like, 7% increase in net, uh, net sales, 4.4% increase in store traffic, they said.

So some pretty good stuff in the near term.

I think we're gonna wanna see how this looks a few quarters out.

Uh, for anybody not as familiar with Target, uh, Michael Fadelkey's their new CEO.

He came in recently to kind of turn around this pretty, pretty devastating few years of sales at Target after, after, you know, there, there's been things like boycotts, but there's also just been kind of a discretionary spending environment that's not really been in the company's favor, and a lot of operational mistakes, a lot of people would say, from long lines, empty shelves, a lot of things people are seeing in the stores, uh, and on the back end as well.

Um, curious, you know, when you looked at the earnings this week and, and listened to the call, what were some of the biggest things that you think are driving growth for them right now? Like, where are they winning their shopper back?

But yeah, would you say like more than one in six has closed in your neck of the woods like Mitchell in Dallas?

Yeah, it's hard for me to get a grip on Dallas because it's, like, a country-sized metro area.

The higher-end malls are doing very, very, very, very well.

Like, emphasis underline.

And then you see, like, some of the smaller malls even start to, like, become more, like, community hubs.

Like, Grapevine Texas has...

Like, I was walking through that mall, and that's a totally different story that, like, they had, like...

Well, it's not a store, right?

But maybe this is a good time to talk about just the pure investment that goes into branding these products and just how much marketing they're putting behind them, right, to make them these household brands, not just, quote unquote, "store brands" that you're, uh, picking up for value.

Yeah.

Well, both, both Walmart and Target have very heavily, um, leaned into private label.

Or, or, like, grocers too.

Like, you know, everybody's, everybody's all over this.

Like, Aldi, Aldi invested into rebranding its entire fleet of private label products.

Now they all have the Aldi logo on it.

So, yeah, uh, just the shifting popularity and success of certain big box retailers has been really interesting to watch, right?

What does this transformation look like?

Yeah.

Um, so Michaels' new CEO, he came in in February.

His name is, as you said, David Boone.

Um, he came in February to be the new CEO of Michaels, and i- his first, his first kind of order of business, he was talking about his priorities, and like the first thing he wanted to do was make up for the fact that JoAnn and Party City had just gone out of business due to various financial challenges.

Um, so what they've been working on, which they announced this week and gave me a little show-off in, in the Dallas area, conveniently for me, I live in the Dallas area, they showed off two new things they're doing in, I believe, every store, so this is the Knit & Sew, Sew Shop and the Party Shop.

So there's only two different like new sections of the store.

Yeah, I mean, so we've talked a lot about the upsides here and, and there's clearly a lot of opportunity, but any sort of challenges that you see Michael's having right now as they sort of expand their, their reach and change up their stores? You know, what do you think some of the, the hurdles for them are gonna be for the next few quarters here?

Um, t- tell us a little bit about American Dream for those who aren't familiar with the New Jersey staple.

Well yeah, I actually wrote about the Miami iteration of the American Dream, which, um, is still in the works and probably has been for a decade and probably will be for a while.

But people probably already know the New Jersey American Dream, which also took I think, like, 20 years or multiple decades to come to pro- fruition.

So it's not a surprise that the same project in Miami is also taking quite a w- a while, but when they proposed this years ago, they proposed a, a bunch... li- like, the, like the New Jersey one, they proposed a lot of entertainment concepts as part of it, um, the New Jersey one had a amusement park.

This would have a sea lion s- show, a indoor ski slope, a lake with submarine rides.

I'm reading off a giant list of attractions.

Mini-golf, water park, skating rink.

Um, you know, is, is there any indication that there's still demand for this kind of thing or, or what tells you or what tells the folks behind the American Dream projects that, you know, this is the way that, that people are still gonna want to shop in, in 10, 20, 30 years?