Salute to Local Advertisers, Installment I: Mattress Mack Daddy

Surprising it is, we know, that Houston has arguably the most flamboyant base of self-advertising bidness men this side, even the other side, of the Mason-Dixon Line, especially in the furniture industry.

Jim "Mattress Mack" McIngvale, or Don Moneytree in the secret society of furniture store owners known as Act Like You Are Insane On TV and People Will Buy From You Holla, started with five grand in 1981 and has since built a $100 million a year empire. He manages to do so with only one store and for over 10 years has raked in more jack per square foot than any other furniture retailer in the country. Given the median weight of the city it's easy to see how a family of four can run through an overstuffed living room set in as little as 6 months thus providing a healthy market place for those upholstered products made abroad by the lowest bidder.


It pays to have Turrets

We'd be remissed not to mention what most tenured Houstonians know already which is that in light of the serious bank Mack hauls away with everyday, he is an avid philanthropist giving much of his time and loot to various charities and non-profits across the city in addition to supporting and promoting higher-browed affairs in tennis and horse racing. His cup runneth over and he aims for the less fortunate. Yes ma'am, that there is mighty neighborly of Mack, the Houston way.

So here's to you Mattress Mack - no longer will the public have to settle for the couch that isn't deep enough to hold Uncle Junior's humongous size 60 ass; no longer will they have to shop at more than one location in order to buy both electronics and a new most-proudly-priced-memory-foam-mattress out there; no longer will they have to stress not being able to buy what they can't afford in the first place; and no longer will they have to sit in an empty house for more than 12 hours because this is American and they shouldn't have to damnit...

because you can get them that couch big enough for Junior AND his hooker; you can perch the 60" plasma that never seems to fully focus on the wall AND get Daddy a bed he'll fall asleep on in less than 5 minutes so sound he won't even hear Junior choking her; you can coerce a bank to loan them money they don't have and worsen the credit crisis; and you can get it all in the home they also can't afford and will eventually be foreclosed on TODAY!!!!

DB

Some facts obtained from Loren Steffy's 2006 chron.com column.
http://www.chron.com/disp/story.mpl/business/steffy/4324530.html