Newsday: Jennifer Furniture comes back to its LI roots and plans expansion

by Tory N. Parrish

Jennifer Furniture is expanding, under new ownership and going in a different direction – back to its Long Island roots.

Formerly known as Jennifer Convertibles, the Great Neck-based retailer will be relocating one of its six stores from Patchogue to a former Pier 1 store space in Sayville in April and adding another store on Long Island, said John Garg, chief executive officer of a holding company that bought the furniture chain from a Chinese owner last year.

“This is an American-based company, and we are now totally focusing on American products,” said Garg, who added that the vast majority of the company’s merchandise is made in the United States now.

Jennifer Opco LLC, a Great Neck-based holding company owned by Garg and partner Namdar Realty Group, a commercial real estate company in Great Neck, bought the assets and trademark of Jennifer Furniture in June from Morris Holdings Ltd., a Chinese furniture manufacturer.

Jennifer Furniture, founded more than 40 years ago, sells merchandise online and from its six stores — four on Long Island, one in Orange County, and one in Paramus, New Jersey. But the partners plan to expand the furniture chain, focusing first on Long Island, Garg said.

A Jennifer Furniture Mattress & Sofabed store is scheduled to open in a shopping center in Centereach by May, he said.

In April, the Jennifer Furniture store in Patchogue will relocate about 5 miles away, from a free-standing building on Sunrise Highway to a former Pier 1 space in Savyille Plaza, a shopping center with a Bohemia mailing address.

“The problem is in Patchogue. The store is just sitting by itself. There is no foot traffic. I think it will be much better if there is an audience there,” Garg said.

The Sayville store will occupy an approximately 10,000-square-foot space that Pier 1 vacated in January 2020, said Greg Messina, spokesman for Breslin Realty Development Corp., a Garden City-based real estate firm that owns Sayville Plaza through an affiliate.

The Jennifer Furniture outlet store in Orange County, in Newburgh, opened in June.

Garg partnered with Namdar in the retail furniture business because of Namdar’s vast commercial real estate holdings, he said.