P.M. Bedroom Gallery Becomes Penny Mustard - Home

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By Doris Hajewski of the Journal Sentinel

Nov. 24, 2010 0

P.M. Bedroom Gallery, a local furniture retail chain, will become Penny Mustard on Jan. 1, taking a new name that aims to dispel the notion that the stores sell only bedroom furniture.

They won't be adding food to their offering. And the fact that the new name repeats the initials of the old one is just a coincidence, owner Arvid Huth said.

"We wanted to get as far away from P.M. Bedroom Gallery as we could," Huth said.

Huth and his co-owner, brother Ben Huth, chose the Penny Mustard name from among 14,700 entries. The winning entry, from two contestants, is drawn from a story about their past life as the sons of a farm family in northern Wisconsin. The story was posted on the P.M. Gallery website as part of the background information on the company.

Ben and Arvid, at ages 5 and 6, were paid a penny for every wild mustard plant they picked out of hayfields and pastures on their parents' farm. They were expected to keep an accurate count and they weren't allowed to count any plants without an attached root. Some summers they earned as much as $80.

"We hated picking mustard plants, but it was our first paying job," the brothers say on their website.

Chrystal Morgan of La Crosse and Molly Wagner of West Allis will split the $5,000 in prize money for their identical entries.

The Huths began expanding into dining room sets and living room furniture a few years ago as a way to increase sales.

Their business suffered a blow in late 2008, along with the rest of the furniture industry. Now sales are rebounding, but likely won't reach the $15 million the stores racked up in 2008. Before the economy tanked in October 2008, P.M. Gallery was on track for $18 million in revenue. Last year, sales were just under $13 million.

The brothers own six stores in Wisconsin and Illinois and are looking at another site for a store in Illinois. The company employs 50 people.

Arvid Huth concedes that the Penny Mustard name doesn't make it clear that the store sells furniture. But he said TV and print ads will include images of furniture, so that shouldn't be a problem. In situations where there might be a question about the nature of the business, they will add a tagline mentioning furniture, he said.

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