A changing of the (sign) guard in The Junction this week: Six years after Also Furniture changed its name to Sleepers in Seattle, the Also signage came down, and Sleepers signage went up:
The photos come from Sleepers in Seattle owner Meryl Alcabes, who notes that her company’s been in The Junction for 17 years in all.
Still wondering how a sleeper sofa store manages to stay in business there…too bad it’s not a store that we’d all use regularly. Even a furniture store with normal selection would be more appealing.
A very help-ful and friendly store to shop.
A local place that will do their best for you.
Feh. I agree with Thomas. Wish there was a better use of the premium space there.
I agree with Thomas and b. The scale of this store is really out of proportion with others around it. The bones of the building are great though. Imagine if it were broken up into a row of smaller, more vibrant shops. With all due respect to the current owners and their longevity, the space just seems like a big, drab, fluorescently lit monstrosity. A Junction superstore for the taste-deprived.
It’s gotta be a “front” for someone. Huge tax right off. I’ve never seen anybody in there myself. I’m sure they are nice and helpful but what the?!?…
This place has been a stable part of the food chain here in WS and has a ton of satisfied customers. For some people would never have discovered our little slice of heaven (aka “WS”) had it not been for this store.
Good job you guys. The more the merrier. :-)
We bought our bed there. The owner, Meryl, is a wonderful woman, and I’m glad she’s one of our West Seattle merchants.
The owner, Meryl, is a wonderful woman, and I’m glad she’s one of our West Seattle merchants.
Is that Meryl from the radio commercials? Cool!
Jaime-
just what we nees in the junction, a strip mall, which is what you describe. If that is what you look for in a storefront, move Southeast.
Yes, this is Meryl, from the radio commercials. I am the co-owner, with my husband, of Sleepers In Seattle. I’d like to thank everyone for their input. I did get a laugh out of the “front” comment–I can’t imagine what someone thinks we are doing with the space other than selling furniture.
Seriously, I agree that flourescent light is not ideal. We redid the store lighting recently and I asked for lovely incandescent lights instead of the flourescent tubes. I was told in no uncertain terms that anything but flourescent lighting would be expensive, hot, and waste loads of energy. We worked with City Light and the lighting contractor to be as energy-efficent as possible.
You are correct that As a specialty store we do draw from a much greater geographical area than just West Seattle. We are proud that when people travel a distance to purchase a sleeper sofa they quite often ask us to recommend other businesses in the area, typically requesting a recommendation for a place to have lunch. We feel that we are helping draw customers to neighboring businesses which contributes to the economic stability of the Junction and that in turn can only be positive for West Seattle.
Meryl — Thanks for dropping by to respond to comments! We frequently suggest to fellow business owners that it is very wise to monitor what is said about your company online, and WSB is only one of MANY places that opinions are expressed – for all of us who own businesses, a quick daily Google search for our business name (and/or personal name if applicable), including Google Blogsearch
http://blogsearch.google.com
(you can also set Google Alerts so that you receive e-mail when a given search term such as a business name turns up in something), can point to places where we can see what’s being said and add our own explanations if warranted. We find that a helpful, quick way to make sure that clarifications are issued when needed, or even a “thanks for mentioning us” in response to some of what we’ve found being said about WSB, and we have seen other businesses make good use of the practice as well – some even have their own blogs where they initiate their own discussions about their businesses!
p.s. for anyone who doesn’t already know this, one trick for making sure you get the best search result is to put the phrase – such as a business name – inside quote marks before you hit search. That way you will only get results that mention the specific phrase exactly as you typed it, as opposed to, say, if we search for West Seattle Blog without quote marks, we would get any web result that included the words west and seattle and blog even if they weren’t together.
–TR
I have friends who live in Shoreline and bought a piece of furniture there after a visit to Bakery Nouveau. They raved about the place, though I’ve never been inside myself.
I have shopped at Sleepers in Seattle and I was favorably impressed with the knowledgeable and courteous staff. I am very happy with the furniture we purchased. I would definitely do business there again, even though I don’t live in West Seattle.
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