Local showroom still going strong




LOVE SEAT—Above, Pat and Joe Paulucci, seated, with store co-owners Maureen Holm, Bob Paul and Kathy Paul of PTS Furniture. The store will have a grand reopening on Saturday. RICHARD GILLARD/Acorn Newspapers

LOVE SEAT—Above, Pat and Joe Paulucci, seated, with store co-owners Maureen Holm, Bob Paul and Kathy Paul of PTS Furniture. The store will have a grand reopening on Saturday. RICHARD GILLARD/Acorn Newspapers

When you’ve been doing something for nearly 30 years, it’s hard to break the habit.

Just ask Joe Paulucci.

The founder of PTS Furniture in Thousand Oaks retired in October, leaving the business in the capable hands of his partners: daughter Kathy Paul; her husband, Bob; and longtime staff member Maureen Holm.

But Paulucci still starts his day in the Conejo Ridge Way showroom several times a week.

“I have to come in and check on them,” he joked about the next generation of owners. The truth is he enjoys what he does.

“It’s really a fun place to work,” Paulucci said. “Everything you’ve heard about dealing with difficult customers, it’s not true.”

He and his wife, Pat, opened a store in 1989 that sold only pool tables.

The original Pool Table Store, as it was named, had about 6,000 square feet of space and was located next to Carlson Building Materials on Thousand Oaks Boulevard.

Business began to take off quickly. The Pauluccis soon expanded into a second location two doors down—but the divide-and-conquer approach stretched the limits of PTS’ small staff.

“We didn’t have enough people to staff two stores, so there was a bell that customers could ring and we’d run from one store to the other,” said Kathy, who helped with the store from the beginning, working while on school breaks.

As their customer base continued to swell, the family moved first to Janss Marketplace and then, in 1991, to the freeway-adjacent showroom it still occupies.

For a while there was a PTS store in Van Nuys, but it closed after the Northridge earthquake.

PTS has come a long way since selling only pool tables, but it’s sometimes a struggle to get across the message that the store sells home furnishings like sofas, kitchen tables, office furniture and bar stools, Bob Paul said.

“People are surprised when we tell them we sell home furniture,” said Paul, who began his tenure at PTS as a delivery person. “We’ve even changed the sign, but it’s hard to get it out there.”

Once inside, though, Paulucci thinks it becomes clear why a family should buy their couch there.

“What do you think of when you walk in?” he asked. “I’m looking for one word. That’s ‘quality.’”

He and the staff are quick to point out the majority of products they offer are Americanmade from solid wood and have staying power.

“The most satisfying thing is when people come in and they say their parents bought a sofa 25 years ago and they still use it,” Paulucci said.

Another plus, the owners said, is that most of the products at PTS Furniture are customizable. Many are offered in various wood tones as well as fabrics or leathers.

When people hear Paulucci has retired, some mistakenly think the store has closed.

“We’re very much still here,” said Holm, a designer who came to work at PTS out of college, thinking she’d learn a bit about furniture before moving on. Twenty-eight years later, she’s a co-owner.

Though selection and quality will always be a mainstay, the partners are making some changes at the store, revamping a bit.

They’re inviting customers to come see for themselves at a grand reopening from 10 a.m. to 6 p.m. Sat., March 24.