Tony Curtis-Wellings of Faraday’s Kitchen Store in Austin, TX, is always on the lookout for “the new.” The new product. The new selling tactic. The new cooking and eating trend.
He has been one of the most enthusiastic, encouraging independent housewares retailers, often welcoming new store owners, listening to veteran owners and championing independents with manufacturers. Now, Curtis-Wellings can also add U.S. winner of the 2023 Global Innovation Award (gia) for retailing excellence to his resume.
Open since 2005, Faraday’s has seen its share of ups and downs, including a housing crisis, recession, and, of course, the COVID-19 pandemic. All have challenged consumer spending, shifted buying patterns and changed the face of independent housewares retailers. “We have changed as an economy. We’re not in a changing world. We’re in a new reality. And guess what? There’s so much opportunity,” Curtis-Wellings said.
During the pandemic, Curtis-Wellings used the three months the store was closed to reflect deeply on the next step for him and his business. The cooking school, a revenue driver, was completely shut down. The store wasn’t able to be shopped. So, he did what everyone did during that time— The Pandemic Pivot. His first order of business was focusing on making the online shopping experience easier for customers, creating a more uniform omnichannel experience. He said he went from about 500 products that were available online to more than 7,000, and the revenue growth is more than measurable.
Tony Curtis-Wellings
The pandemic allowed us to take all of our products and put them online and really create an online platform. And at the end of 2020, we were up 20% for the year and that was after being closed for three months. Ever since, we have been reaping the benefits.
– Tony Curtis-Wellings
“The pandemic allowed us to take all of our products and put it online and really create an online platform,” Curtis-Wellings said. And at the end of 2020, we were up 20% for the year and that was after being closed for three months. Ever since, we have been reaping the benefits,” he said, adding that online shopping has become its own separate aspect of the business. He also noted that he specifically targets local shoppers, as he is not looking to ship around the country.
The team also reworked the cooking school curriculum during the shutdown, creating a more inclusive environment for those interested in taking classes.
“We ended up doing 360 kids on a zoom call during the summer and really rewrote all the curriculum for our kids camp. We also redesigned a lot of the curriculum in our cooking school, which was purely about education prior to the pandemic,” Curtis-Wellings said.
While Curtis-Wellings was always in some sort of growth phase, he was looking for something bigger. The realization wasn’t too far from his own backyard.
“I noticed, in 2020, that our Big Green Egg and pellet grill business really went out of control. So, in January of 2021, I said to myself, ‘We need to follow the customer into the backyard, because that’s where the cooking is going’,” he said.
Soon after, Faraday’s opened its outdoor kitchen appliance center in which he does turnkey outdoor kitchens. It was a gamble, he said, and a heavy investment. However, it is paying dividends. “Getting out of the house and getting in the backyard, we doubled the business in three years. We really created a whole different type of business but it’s very complementary to the kitchen store business,” Curtis-Wellings said.
After so much growth, one might think Curtis-Wellings would sit back and reap the benefits of his labor. Not so. The retailer who has always been known for looking for “the new” is once again taking another step towards evolving his business: the planned launch of a turnkey indoor kitchen business in the next several weeks.
For some, all of the changes in such a short amount of time might be a lot. But for Curtis-Wellings, it seems, he’s just getting started.
“I feel like I’m 25 years old again,” he said. “I was doing the same thing for more than 15 years, and 18 years into it, I’ve transformed the business. I’m looking forward to the future and all the opportunities in front of me.”
