The furniture company in this city five miles north of Albert Lea has been selling to the local market for 14 years but on Wednesday the owner of the four-store chain announced the Clarks Grove store will close.

The Rooms and Rest stores in Austin, Mankato, New Ulm and Clarks Grove had been known as Minnesota Furniture Warehouse. Owner Tom Scheman said three stores remodeled last fall. At Clarks Grove, only the name changed.

“It’s our smallest store and sales didn’t justify remodeling to our new format,” Scheman said.

He said sales have been declining over the past five years, partly because many Albert Lea customers were going to the Austin store.

Rooms and Rest in Clarks Grove will close after the furniture is sold off. He said the liquidation will begin right away. He estimated the closing will happen in early spring.

The store is an anchor for the town of 700 people and losing it will impact the city’s business community. He said local residents have supported the store.

“The Clarks Grove community has been good to our business through the years, and we’re hoping to not leave them with a vacant building,” Scheman said.
The company site:

Rooms and Rest

He said the building is for sale or lease and said he would like the site to have a business use.

Scheman purchased the building from Jim and Lorraine Fobair 14 years ago. They ran it as a furniture store, too. It was called Fobair Furniture.

Rooms to Rest has 100 employees and there are seven at the Clarks Store. He said no one will be laid off.

“We’re hoping to offer transfers to all employees at other locations,” Scheman said.

The company still stands behind its products and warranties, he said. People with inquiries are welcomed to contact the Austin store. Scheman said his company will continue to promote its furniture in the Albert Lea market.

Rooms and Rest, he said, is a new format that focuses on room packages, in-home design consultations and alternative sleep products.

Scheman said the company saw declining sales before the national economic woes set in. He said he entire furniture industry has been hit hard because of the housing decline.

“Less home sales result in fewer furniture purchases,” he said.

He said as a whole Rooms to Rest remains financially strong and has no inventory debt to repay.

Like businesses in many fields, it needed to tighten its costs. The Clarks Grove store closing is a result.

“That’s really what we are doing,” Scheman said.