Open For Business: Nastasi's Furniture And Mattress Have Sold American-Made Pieces That Tell Stories For 80 Years
OAKLYN, N.J. (CBS) -- They started their small business in the 1940s and all of these years later, it's still going strong.
"If you're buying a car and you want to buy a BMW or Mercedes or Lexus, well that would be us as furniture," said. "This is the reclining division. Flex Steel is a great company."
For 80 years, Nastasi's Furniture and Mattresses have sat on the White Horse Pike in Oaklyn offering a haven for homemakers looking for American-made pieces that tell a story of their style for a generation.
"I have a friend, his grandmother bought a grandfather clock from Nastasi's in 1960," Matt Lawson Jr. said. "That's a sentimental piece that told a story and forever, that's a family heirloom piece, and we're a part of it."
"The main thing is keeping an American business going and selling American products," Matt Lawson said. "I just feel like something I have to do."
Started by Italian immigrant Frank Nastasi in 1942, he began selling vacuums with Va Va Voom!
"He would show at all the big shows for appliances," Lawson said. "So, back then, you didn't have TV, you didn't have radio. So, Frank Nastasi would get up there and start singing and talking to the people, it was a great thing. And we started as an appliance store in Camden. Then next thing, you know the appliances went into furniture and here we are today."
And today, this 30,000 square foot small business is still in the family. Ran by grandson Matt Lawson, and his sons Matt Jr. and Mark.
"Oh, grandpa would be so happy today if he could just see those boys carry this business on," Lawson said.
While 2020 may have torn many small businesses at the seams, it didn't take this one. The family ties were just too strong to break.
