Nebraska Furniture Mart is the largest home furnishing store in North America selling furniture, flooring, appliances and electronics. NFM was founded in 1937 by Belarus-born Rose Blumkin, universally known as Mrs. B., in Omaha, Nebraska, on a $500 investment. Under the motto "sell cheap and tell the truth," she worked in the business until age 103. In 1983, Mrs. B. sold a majority interest to Berkshire Hathaway in a handshake deal with Warren Buffett.
Presently, Nebraska Furniture Mart has three stores. The Omaha, Nebraska store is over 420,000 square feet (39,000 m2) of retail space and is on 77 acres (310,000 m2) of land. The store is located in a single collective campus on South 72nd street in West Omaha, Nebraska. In 1994, the store added a massive electronics and appliance store selling computers, software, music, movies and personal electronic items as well as TVs and appliances. The campus also includes Mrs. B's Clearance Center and Factory Outlet. Both the Omaha and Kansas City locations house over 85,000 furniture items, 185,000 appliance and electronics items and over 1 million square yards of carpet.
The Kansas City store opened in 2003 in the Village West development in Kansas City, Kansas across from the Kansas Speedway and Livestrong Sporting Park, 12 miles west of downtown Kansas City, Missouri. It encompasses a total of 1.1 million sq. ft. of retail and warehouse space and is on 88 acres (360,000 m2) of land. It draws visitors all over the United States and has become a popular tourist attraction.
The third satellite store is located in Clive, Iowa, a suburb of Des Moines. Within its 24,000 square feet (2,200 m2) it sells a wide selection of appliances, flooring and televisions. Nebraska Furniture Mart also owns Homemakers, a furniture store in Urbandale, Iowa, another suburb of Des Moines.
On November 9, 2011 Nebraska Furniture Mart announced a plan to expand its retail operation to North Texas. The anticipated, initial opening date is Spring 2015.
Famous quotes containing the words nebraska, furniture and/or mart:
“What should concern Massachusetts is not the Nebraska Bill, nor the Fugitive Slave Bill, but her own slaveholding and servility. Let the State dissolve her union with the slaveholder.... Let each inhabitant of the State dissolve his union with her, as long as she delays to do her duty.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)
“Furniture! Thank God, I can sit and I can stand without the aid of a furniture warehouse.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)
“You yourself
Are much condemned to have an itching palm,
To sell and mart your offices for gold
To undeservers.”
—William Shakespeare (1564–1616)