McRoskey Mattress Co. thrives on hand-crafted heritage

As maker and retailer, this venerable San Francisco-based mattress business builds its service from the springs up

BY JULIE A. PALM
PHOTOGRAPHY BY JACK HUTCH

At McRoskey Mattress Co., being a mattress manufacturer makes a difference at retail. And closing the sale always includes this question: “May we make your mattress?”

A 115-year history of constructing its own mattresses—and even some components and point-of-purchase items—gives McRoskey intimate knowledge about how various constructions impact sleep. And that means customers are greeted by knowledgeable retail sales associates who can show them a well-thought-out, easy-to-navigate selection of luxury beds.

Brothers Edward and Leonard McRoskey started the business in 1899 in San Francisco. The company originally sold its mattresses through other retailers, but since the 1920s has been both maker and retailer. The business is now led by the third generation of the family with Robin McRoskey Azevedo at the helm as president. 

“We are both a manufacturing veteran and a retail veteran, and because of that we have a unique ability to focus on the product to best serve our customers,” Azevedo says. “At McRoskey, the product is at the heart of what we do. Day in and day out, we focus on the product.”

In 2012, the company unveiled a rebranding effort that led to a new website and logo that better reflect the hand-crafted nature of its products.

McRoskey bed sets are sold in two retail stores—one in a building on Market Street in San Francisco that the family business has occupied since 1925 and a second 30 miles away in Palo Alto, California, that opened in 2001.

Building from the springs up

Because all McRoskey employees who work on the retail floor start their training at the company’s factory, we’ll begin there. McRoskey beds are manufactured by a team of about 20 people in a factory in San Francisco’s Central Waterfront area. McRoskey forms coils and builds its own innerspring units, which are at the core of every bed it makes. Employees also garnet their fiber filling materials; cut, sew, hem and assemble their own covering kits for mattresses and box springs; and craft box springs from knotted steel upholstery coils stapled to the wood frame and held in place with a hand-fabricated, link-top assembly.

In an era of all-foam specialty beds, McRoskey’s commitment to innersprings is notable. So, too, is its continued production of two-sided mattresses, giving the company an opportunity to maintain a close relationship with customers. The retailer sends quarterly emails reminding customers when to turn and rotate their mattresses. The company has been known to go to the home of a long-time customer to help with the process.

“Our industry sometimes gets caught up in hype and chasing the latest thing,” Azevedo says. “Our mattresses don’t need re-engineering all the time to make it a better product. We’re of the school that we know what works for our customers.”

Part of the reason McRoskey knows so well what its customers want is that the company retains paper-and-ink ledgers documenting sales and customer preferences going back to the early 1920s. Many of its current customers are repeat buyers, who have purchased beds for multiple family members and multiple homes. Of course, today’s detailed record-keeping is computerized.

Being a factory-direct allows McRoskey to offer consumers custom-made beds and unusual sizes. For urban shoppers who live in iconic San Francisco housing with its narrow entryways and steep staircases, the retailer suggests its two-piece, queen-size box spring. “It just makes life easier for our customers,” Azevedo says. 

The company also makes a San Francisco king, a 7-by-7 bed that’s both a nod to the city’s geographic footprint—it’s 49 square miles—and a way to satisfy customers who want an impressively roomy bed.

McRoskey’s beds are grouped into three collections and available in six comfort levels that are achieved by variations within both the box springs and the tufted innerspring mattresses. The retailer’s opening collection is the Basic, which includes cotton and polyester fiber in the comfort layers and retails for $3,600 in a queen-size set. McRoskey’s largest and best-selling collection is the Classic, which has comfort levels from extra gentle to extra firm. A queen-size set in the Classic line, regardless of comfort, retails for $4,800. The byDesign collection incorporates natural wool and latex for a healthy sleep story and retails for $6,950 in queen.

McRoskey innerspring mattresses can be used with adjustable bases, as well as on sofa beds, trundles and rollaways, broadening their appeal with shoppers who need beds for vacation homes.

Price points have held relatively steady over the past few years, though average tickets have risen slightly because shoppers are more likely to add pillows, bed frames and other items to their final purchases.

Sophisticated, simple showrooms

Though they are both about 2,500 square feet and display beds in a similar manner, McRoskey’s two stores have decidedly different feels. The San Francisco location, which was once the company’s manufacturing facility, is steeped in history. It’s a handsome three-story, freestanding masonry building that McRoskey has occupied for nearly nine decades. 

“In the San Francisco showroom, there’s so much history, you almost feel like you’re walking into an interactive museum,” says Jill Bibo, McRoskey director of retail sales.

Azevedo describes the newer Palo Alto store as being “sleeker and modern looking.” Bits of Stanford University memorabilia help tie the store to the nearby institution, its staff and alumni, which include Azevedo’s late father and uncle.

Both stores are bathed in a soft peach color and feature blond-hued woods to create an elegant, soothing environment. 

 Beds are organized by collection and comfort and then shown on a variety of foundations—box springs, adjustable bases and platforms, which are increasingly popular among McRoskey shoppers. Foot protectors gracing the beds are made by McRoskey, as well.

Signage is kept to a minimum. “Unlike other retailers, we don’t need a lot of signage or color-coding to distinguish different brands,” Azevedo says. Shoppers aren’t distracted by tedious information about things like coil counts or foam densities. Mini-mattress cutaways and a rolling cart heaped with fiber filling materials illustrate mattress constructions far better than wordy placards, Azevedo believes.

Somewhat unusual among brick-and-mortar retailers, McRoskey clearly lists prices for all of its beds on its website, but not on floor models. Still, McRoskey shoppers are educated in pricing; some 85% have researched the company online before they visit a showroom. 

The retailer carries toppers and blankets from Brun de Vian-Tiran, as well as down and synthetic down pillows, duvets and featherbeds from Northern Feather. Such sleep accessories are displayed artfully on tables and in wall cabinets. For added support and customization, the retailer offers the EmBrace bed frame from Knickerbocker Bed Frame Co., legs from Universal Bedlegs and No-Sag T-Slats that it manufactures itself. Its adjustable base is from Leggett & Platt Inc.

The shopping experience

There’s no shouting across an elegant McRoskey store. When a customer enters, a retail sales associate will walk over to greet the customer, typically with, “Hello. How can we help you today?” 

“Our philosophy is that we want to greet customers as if we were greeting them in our home,” Bibo says. 

McRoskey is cognizant that most consumers are pressed for time and have things they’d rather be doing than shopping for a mattress. 

“We know the customer’s time is valuable so we’ve worked on questions to help get customers to see the products that we know will work for them,” Bibo says. 

Initial qualifying questions include: What brings you in today? Why are you shopping for a mattress? How long have you had your current mattress? Because of the company’s comfort-based approach to mattress construction, it also asks about a shopper’s preferred sleeping position. 

“We try not to ask a lot of questions initially,” Azevedo says. “Our goal is to get the customer talking and to make them feel relaxed.”

McRoskey shoppers often are relieved they aren’t facing dozens of mattresses from several manufacturers. “People will comment, ‘Oh, this looks easy,’ when they come in,” Azevedo says. She also wants the buying process to be enjoyable and was tickled by a recent review on Yelp in which a customer wrote, “I never knew mattress shopping could be so much fun.”

If a customer gets a mattress home and it doesn’t feel the same as it did in the store, the retailer will send an employee out to investigate and, for instance, suggest adjustments to support systems, if necessary. Special visits also will be made to measure a customer’s furniture before mattresses are purchased. Often those house calls are made by Robert Azevedo—a fourth-generation McRoskey and Robin Azevedo’s son.

Bed sets are delivered by independent contractors who have worked with the company for 15 years or more. Local delivery and removal of the old set are included in the sales price.

Experienced sales team

McRoskey’s retail side employs five full-time RSAs and a customer-service specialist. In a company where the last salesperson was hired eight years ago, training is more a matter of continual improvement than learning the ropes.

“Because of the tenure of our sales team—60 years of combined experience—our training is more fluid than formalized,” Bibo says. “We do monthly meetings and build on the wisdom of our own people. We’re always sharing knowledge and learning from each other.”

The retail team makes frequent visits to the factory to review the manufacturing process and learn about new components or construction techniques. It’s also a time for retail and factory staff to get to know each other better—vital in a company where the two groups are expected to interact often to meet the needs of customers.

The sales team is compensated with base salaries plus commissions. McRoskey experimented with pooling commissions at one store but found its original system was more effective in emphasizing the company’s belief that each salesperson is responsible for ensuring customer satisfaction—from the moment she walks into the store until long after her bed set is delivered. 

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WOOING A SPECIFIC CUSTOMER BASE, BY DESIGN

By cultivating relationships with interior designers, San Francisco-based McRoskey Mattress Co. has earned their loyalty. About 15% of the company’s annual revenue is through the design trade, says President Robin McRoskey Azevedo.

“We’re a resource when they need to spec something,” Azevedo says. “Often, they are dealing with projects that have specific height or length issues regarding mattresses, and we can help them with that.”

One way designers and the retailer work together is to create window displays at the company’s San Francisco showroom. “We have designers come in and do bedroom vignettes,” Azevedo says. “It’s a great visual draw for our customers and the designer can then promote their work through emails, etc. It’s one of several collaborative things we do.”

The average consumer is going to buy a new mattress maybe every seven to 10 or even 15 years, but designers, who have extensive client lists, can bring a retailer frequent repeat business. They also provide McRoskey with the opportunity to do what it does best: offer luxury mattresses made to meet customers’ specific needs. Recently, an interior designer called to ask about shipping a McRoskey mattress to a high-end hotel in Manhattan where a client was going to be staying for a couple of months.

As Azevedo says, “When customers travel, they miss their McRoskey beds.”

Meet the shoppers

Jill Bibo, McRoskey Mattress Co. director of retail sales, recently created the following categorization of the retailer’s customers.

Selecting a “typical” customer is never easy, but the retailer’s “bread and butter” is a group Bibo has deemed “The Shermans”—couples in their 60s and 70s who have happily owned McRoskey beds in the past and may own multiple homes. A growing group is “Bob and Kathy”—couples in their 50s and 60s who like to shop together and who are less price sensitive than the Shermans.

The retailer also is seeing more of the “Thompson Family”—married couples in their 40s and 50s who have younger children. The mom typically does the initial shopping and brings the dad in later. These parents buy the same top-quality beds for their children as for themselves.

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MEET THE SHOPPERS

Jill Bibo, McRoskey Mattress Co. director of retail sales, recently created the following categorization of the retailer’s customers.

Selecting a “typical” customer is never easy, but the retailer’s “bread and butter” is a group Bibo has deemed “The Shermans”—couples in their 60s and 70s who have happily owned McRoskey beds in the past and may own multiple homes. A growing group is “Bob and Kathy”—couples in their 50s and 60s who like to shop together and who are less price sensitive than the Shermans.

The retailer also is seeing more of the “Thompson Family”—married couples in their 40s and 50s who have younger children. The mom typically does the initial shopping and brings the dad in later. These parents buy the same top-quality beds for their children as for themselves.

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MARKETING CENTERS ON BUILDING COMMUNITY

You’re not going to see McRoskey Mattress Co. employees dressed in bed costumes, waving customers into the store from the street corner. And you’re not going to be blasted by its loud “Sale, Sale, Sale” commercials on area TV stations.

Granted, McRoskey does its share of traditional advertising, specifically TV and radio ads with the local CBS affiliates, and takes out display ads in local newspapers and, occasionally, local magazines. Though not a heavy social media user, the company also has a presence on Facebook and Twitter. But, for the most part, the retailer’s marketing is more subtle and subdued.

As a mattress maker, McRoskey is a member of SFMade, whose mission is to build and sustain a vibrant manufacturing sector in San Francisco. The nonprofit was founded in 2010 and Azevedo sits on its board of directors.

Some of McRoskey’s most successful marketing efforts embrace the community. The company has sponsored music and silent film festivals and citywide reading initiatives. For more than 10 years, it has donated new mattresses to the Canon Barcus Community House, a transitional residence for formerly homeless and disadvantaged families.

McRoskey also partners with other businesses, including bookstores, to host events, particularly on the third floor of the Market Street store in San Francisco.

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Julie A. Palm is a writer and editor based in Winston-Salem, North Carolina. She can be reached at japalm623@gmail.com.