History
The company was started by Samuel Tatelman in 1918 in Waltham, Massachusetts. Samuel sold furniture out of the back of a truck until 1926. In the late 1930s, his son Edward joined the business. In 1973, Barry and Eliot Tatelman took over the business from their father, Edward. They stopped advertising on the back page of the Waltham paper and started on radio. In 1983, Barry and Eliot built the Nashua, New Hampshire location.
In 1987, they opened the Avon, Massachusetts location, creating the largest traffic jam ever recorded on Route 24. Barry and Eliot had to go on the radio to beg people not to come. Customers stood in line for hours waiting for their turn to go into the showroom.
On Mother's Day 1992, the Motion Odyssey Movie (MOM) opened in the Avon store, after five years of planning and a $2.5 million investment. Over 1 million people have experienced MOM, raising more than $300,000 for non-profit organizations.
On April 17, 1998, Barry and Eliot opened the biggest Jordan's Furniture to date with 120,000 sq ft (11,000 m2). of showroom space and a Mardi Gras/Bourbon Street theme, the Natick, Massachusetts location introduced Jordan's to the MetroWest area.
In October 1999, the Tatelman brothers sold the company to insurance conglomerate Berkshire Hathaway. The sale was intended to increase the financial backing of Jordan's Furniture for future growth. To celebrate, each employee received a financial gift of 50 cents for every hour ever worked at Jordan's. Operationally, nothing changed. Barry and Eliot remained at the helm, still starring in all radio/tv commercials and as integral parts of the company.
On Thursday, August 22, 2002, the IMAX 3D Theater at Jordan's Furniture in Natick opened its doors to the public. This new venue offered a new level of "shoppertainment" in Jordan's Furniture history. The Waltham store closed in 2004, the day the new Reading, Massachusetts store opened, which was the largest of Jordan's locations. It includes a complete showroom, warehouse, and 3D IMAX movie theater. In addition, Jordan's opened a 750,000 sq ft (70,000 m2) Warehouse/Office complex in Taunton, Massachusetts. In 2005, the warehouse underneath the Avon store was converted into the Colossal Clearance Center, containing over 60,000 square feet (5,600 m2)of clearance merchandise.
Barry Tatelman left Jordan's Furniture in December 2006,
| “ | ...to pursue other interests such as helping to produce a Broadway show Dirty Rotten Scoundrels, starring actor John Lithgow. . . . Besides Broadway, Barry Tatelman will dabble in Hollywood. He is a principal of a new film company called "Filmshop" and is working on a TV series, according to a Jordan's press release. | ” |
After Barry left for Hollywood, Eliot Tatelman remained the public face of the company. Recently, Tatelman has aligned himself as a sponsor of the Boston Red Sox and Boston Bruins radio and television broadcasts. For the past four baseball seasons, Tatelman's spiel has been to offer shoppers free furniture if the Red Sox perform improbable feats, such as sweeping the World Series in four games, or if a Sox batter hits a ball that strikes a dinner plate-sized baseball next to the Jordan's logo in straightaway dead center field.
The origin of the company's name is uncertain; the brothers once speculated that their grandfather chose the name out of a hat.
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