Retail: Rooms To Go to open new Dunn outlet center next week

Rooms To Go, a furniture chain that operates in the southeastern U.S., Texas and Puerto Rico, is opening a 1.455 million-square-foot facility in Dunn Oct. 17.

The place, which sits on about 120 acres, brings with it a Rooms To Go, a Rooms to Go Kids/Teens, a Rooms To Go Outlet, a distribution center and about 400 jobs.

“Whether you buy new furniture in Raleigh or Durham or Fayetteville, Wilmington, or any of the places we have stores, even Myrtle Beach, it’s just having that huge inventory in that huge infrastructure there, we will be able to serve all of our customers,” said Warren Kornblum, Rooms To Go’s chief strategic officer. “It’s going to make all of our stores in the area better for us.”

The 40,000 square feet of retail space will be set up just like any other Rooms To Go, arranged and decorated so customers can see what the furniture, lamps, rugs, wall art and other decor would look like in their own homes.

The outlet center will include lower-priced pieces, which have previously been in showrooms and marked down, along with furniture that’s been bought specifically for the outlet.

“Furniture in the outlet center is definitely less expensive,” Kornblum said. “Again, it’s either because it’s been marked to clear or it’s been bought specifically – a value buy – for our consumers who would prefer to shop in an outlet center.”

The distribution center will hold tens of thousands of pieces of furniture, and will serve customers in North and South Carolina along with those as far north as Richmond, Va. It will feature a customer pick-up area that will allow shoppers to take their furniture home without paying for delivery.

At first, only mattresses will be available for pick-up, Kornblum said, but eventually, other pieces will be included.

“It will take us a little while to evolve the other inventory into it, but yes, that’s definitely going to be a part of it because the inventory will be there,” he said. “We are going to need a little while to get that up and fully running.”

The facility also offers delivery on its products, with about 90 percent of it being in stock and available for delivery the day after purchase, Korblum said.

Rooms To Go has hired about two-thirds of the planned 400 new employees needed for its retail space, distribution center, operations and delivery, and Kornblum says the company will probably exceed that number over time.

“Four hundred is a very safe number. ... It’s not so much for the store itself as it is for the larger distribution center,” Korblum said. “It takes a while to fill something that big (with employees).”

Funds for the facility come in part from $448,100 from the Golden Leaf Foundation and $200,000 from the One North Carolina Fund.

The Florida-based retailer got its start in 1991, and now has about 150 stores in 10 states, including 17 in North Carolina.

The Rooms To Go facility is at 901 Rooms to Go Way, about one half a mile south of exit 75 on I-95.

Durham-based Counter Culture Coffee is moving out of the place it has called home for 14 years.

After launching its first coffee roastery on the West Coast earlier this year, the 20-year-old company is transitioning from its current 15,000-square-foot location on the Durham-Morrisville border to a 25,000-square-foot warehouse in east Durham, set to open in spring 2016.

“We’re excited to hopefully continue to support Durham,” Counter Culture’s co-founder and president Brett Smith said “It’s been a great hometown for us, and it feels like sometimes people from Durham don’t know we’re here.”

The larger location, across the street from Triangle Brewing, will house the company’s corporate offices, one of its roasteries and a training facility. The new facility will allow Counter Culture to more than double its output from the 2 million pounds of coffee it currently roasts each year, the company said.

The East Durham headquarters will have climate-controlled green coffee storage, a new Loring roaster and two vintage Probat roasters that they’ve used for years.

Counter Culture sells its coffee wholesale to restaurants and stores. Smith said the company doesn’t want to compete with its partners by opening a retail location, which makes it harder to engage with the community at times.

To combat this, the company hosts tastings every Friday that are open to the public and frequently puts on workshops for baristas and coffee professionals. Once Counter Culture moves to its new location, those lessons will continue, but on a larger scale.

“With the new space, we can just do more. It’s much larger, it can accommodate larger crowds,” Smith said. “We wanted to take what we do and make sure it’s not hidden behind the curtain.”

Counter Culture will be at 812 Mallard Ave.

Smallcakes, a Kansas City-based cupcake shop chain,will have a grand opening at its new location at Parkside Town Commons on Oct. 17. The event will feature face painting, a photo booth, giveaways and deals on cupcakes. It’s at 1132 Parkside Main St. in Cary.

Revolver Consignment Boutique, which sells men’s and women’s clothes and jewelry, has moved about 20 feet away from its old spot at Glenwood South. It’s now at 122 Glenwood Ave., on the ground floor and adjacent to parking.

Wine & Design, a franchise painting studio that allows its customers to bring and drink wine, is having a ribbon cutting Oct. 15 at 5:30 p.m. at its recently opened location at 5452 Apex Peakway in Apex.

Godavari Indian restaurant in North Raleigh is going mobile.

Babu Koganti, CEO of the Godavari Group, said the restaurant plans to launch the company’s first Godavari Express food truck through it Raleigh location next month. The truck will serve the Triangle.

Godavari opened its first North Carolina location at 9650 Strickland Road, on Aug. 29. The restaurant, which also has locations in New York and Massachusetts, offers a buffet of Southern Indian cuisine.

Masala Wrap just added its name to a long list of Indian restaurants in Morrisville.

The counter-service restaurant offers wraps, salads and rice bowls with an East-West fusion twist.

Kunal Prikh, one of the restaurant’s three partners, says what makes Masala Wrap unique is its diversity.

“We actually got a wide variety of customers. All people have come to try our food and they really like our food,” he said.

Prikh hasn’t had experience in the restaurant industry before, but he says the partners saw a need for diversity in Indian food offerings and decided to fill it. He also said Masala Wrap is the first location in the Triangle area that has had the idea of serving Indian food quickly and as a wrap.

“Our restaurant is coming with a very new concept for the first time in the Triangle,” he said.

Masala Wrap is at 9825-F Chapel Hill Road in Morrisville.

This story was originally published October 8, 2015 at 5:10 PM with the headline "Retail: Rooms To Go to open new Dunn outlet center next week."