Utah-based furniture, appliance and CE chain RC Willey has opened its second store in Sacramento, Calif.
The new 170,000-square-foot mega showroom is the retailer’s 12th full-service location, and will be followed by a 13th store in Layton, Utah, where construction is expected to begin soon.
The latest Sacramento addition had a soft opening on Jan. 17 and has slated Feb. 28 for its official grand opening, replete with ribbon-cutting ceremony.
The store is located in the new Delta Shores shopping center, where it can serve the nearby communities of Elk Grove, Davis and Rancho Cordova, president Jeff Child said.
According to the company’s website, customers had been driving in from those areas, as well as from South Sacramento and Florin, to shop the company’s first Sacramento store, which opened in Rocklin in 2006. The retailer previously said it plans to open several locations in California’s capital city.
The new store offers five distinct departments – furniture, mattresses, electronics, appliances and flooring – plus an expansive clearance center, a live kitchen and a café serving fresh cookies, drinks and frozen yogurt.
Designed by Babcock Design Group and RC Willey visual presentation VP Rick Smith, the two-story building is described by the retailer as open, airy and modern, with glass exterior walls, 14-foot ceilings and skylights for natural light.
“We feel [it] is one of the most beautiful home furnishings stores anywhere,” Child said.
Child, who heads the chain’s furniture business, assumed additional responsibility for the company’s direction in 2017 while former CEO Scott Hymas completes a three-year religious leave with the Mormon Church in Sacramento.
The company, a member of the prestigious NATM Buying Corp., was founded by door-to-door appliance salesman Rufus Call Willey in 1932. His son-in-law Bill Child took the reins in 1954, and sold the chain to Warren Buffet’s Berkshire Hathaway in 1995.
Under Hymas’s watch, the Salt Lake City-based business expanded into Idaho (Boise), Nevada (Las Vegas and Reno) and Sacramento, and opened its 160,000-square-foot flagship location in Draper, Utah in 2014.
See: RC Willey Shuffling Utah Stores
According to a profile in the Utah Deseret News, the family-run operation is comprised of devout Mormons who extend their religious principals to the business by emphasizing customer service, employee loyalty, debt-free operation and — over Buffett’s initial objections — keeping the stores closed on Sunday.
