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One of the hardest tasks during a move is transporting one’s mattress, says Johannes Sauer.
His solution: roll it up into a vacuum-sealed bag and move it in a box.
Sauer is the CEO and co-founder of Suissly, a Santa Barbara-based mattress company that does just that.
Seven months after incorporating, Suissly is celebrating the opening of a showroom beside its 511 Olive St. headquarters.
The room resembles a bedroom that features the four types of mattresses Suissly carries, which vary in their firmness.
Sauer says the variety fits the bedding needs and preferences of 90- to 95-percent of people.
The showroom serves customer-experience and customer-service purposes, he said; if customers have a problem with their mattress, they can come in and demonstration in-person what they’re experiencing.
Suissly, which sources all of its materials in the United States, manufactures its mattresses in Denver, Colorado. Its products, which also include Egyptian cotton sheets and hypoallergenic pillows, are available only online.
Sauer began his career in his native Austria with a tech company that manufactures electronics that go into furniture, and became acquainted with American bed and mattress companies that became his clients.
“Pretty much over the last eight years that I spent in the mattress industry, I learned a lot about how things are done,” he said. “I felt there was a way to improve how you shop for mattresses and the experience that you get from it. There’s a lot more value that you can get out of it.”
Believing he could improve on current industry’s standards, Sauer opened Suissly with funding from Swiss investors, stealing away local industry employees in the process.
Suissly is also opening a second office in Switzerland.
The Office of Angela Scott celebrates new design studio
Five years after originally opening in Dallas, The Office of Angela Scott, a luxury shoe brand, has come to Santa Barbara.
The founder, who lived in Santa Barbara for 16 years before heading to Texas, just celebrated the opening of a design studio at 913 De La Vina St.
Santa Barbara has “always been home,” Scott said. “And to be able to move back home and be able to have a design studio here in Santa Barbara is really kind of something special.”
The business carries primarily women’s footwear, and maintains its flagship establishment in Los Angeles.
What makes the shoes unique, Scott said, is how they’re assembled and hand-stitched in the way men’s dress shoes tend to be.
“It’s one of the oldest and most traditional forms of constructing footwear,” she said. “And it’s really kind of the best quality that you can have in footwear.”
Her products have a tomboy inspiration which developed, she said, out of her being the one daughter among three brothers.
“You’ll see a lot of traditional men’s-wear silhouettes, but with a little bit of a feminine edge to it.”
Shoes start at $195, and the company helped ring in the new studio with a sample sale last weekend.
The studio is open from 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. Monday through Friday, and occasionally on weekends.
Blaze Pizza coming to Santa Barbara
Blaze Pizza will open in Santa Barbara for the first time next month with a new restaurant at 3925 State St.
The build-your-own pizza chain is the fastest-growing restaurant in the fast-casual-dining sector, said Scott Soller, whose holding company HR Pizza Holdings LLC owns Blaze Pizzas in Isla Vista and the San Fernando Valley.
The chain, he said, has built over 150 stores in roughly two years.
What attracted him to the company, he said, was its fast-casual concept — customers go down a line adding toppings before paying and sitting down to eat — as well as the price point and modern feel of the establishments.
Blaze Pizza is opening in the Five Points Shopping Center, which split the site of a former Carl’s Jr in two.
The side Blaze got, Soller said, is ideal with a patio facing the parking lot.
He said the restaurant is looking to open around Dec. 15. It’s hiring as well, and applications can be picked up on site.
New general manager named for The Fess Parker
The Fess Parker, a DoubleTree by Hilton Resort announced Monday that it hired Neil Poisson as its new general manager.
The former general manager of the DoubleTree San Jose will oversee the 300 employees of the 360-room luxury resort at 633 E. Cabrillo Blvd. in Santa Barbara.
Poisson has also worked at hotels and resorts in Honolulu, San Diego, San Francisco and Milwaukee, Wisconsin.
The Fess Parker is named for the film actor known for playing American Frontier figures like Davy Crockett and Daniel Boone.
— Noozhawk staff writer Sam Goldman can be reached at sgoldman@noozhawk.com. Follow Noozhawk on Twitter: @noozhawk, @NoozhawkNews and @NoozhawkBiz. Connect with Noozhawk on Facebook.