St. Louis Business Journal: Rustic Grain is turning old barns into bars, tables — and growth

Interviewed by Ben Unglessbee of the St. Louis Business Journal, Jimmy Farah, President & Foudner of Rustic Grain; shares how Rustic Grain came to fruition and how the company is growing.

Below is the full transcript of the interview. The interview in its entirety can be found here: http://www.bizjournals.com/stlouis/news/2014/10/08/rustic-grain-is-turning-old-barns-into-bars-tables.html#i1

“It might seem like common sense that old barns are full of wood. But when you’re basing your business off of that wood, every detail matters.

When he founded furniture and accessory company Rustic Grain last year, Jimmy Farah worried about having enough wood. “I thought supply would be an issue,” he said.

That quickly changed. Farah, a Connecticut native who grew up making furniture with his dad as a hobby, started Rustic Grain with the idea of reclaiming wood from abandoned barns on rural property and handcrafting it into unique, high-end furniture, some of which has made it into local restaurants and bars. As Farah soon found, there was plenty of high-quality wood waiting for him in the region’s defunct barns.

“If you pick them right, it’s almost endless,” Farah said. He estimates from the handful of barns the company deconstructed already, they’ve reclaimed about 200,000 board feet of wood. “Anything we can salvage, we take,” he said. That includes doors, hinges, any bit of metal or usable wood.

Farmers have offered up their barns to the company free of charge. For property owners, they save on insurance payments and property taxes when they have one less structure on their land, Farah said. At the moment, the team has leads on 35 barns from property owners who have reached out to them. “All these barns are falling apart. Nobody’s using them,” he said. “How great would it be if you had a piece made out of them and knew the history.”

The company has grown faster than anticipated. Rustic Grain in August beat its $300,000 revenue goal for the year — defined as from October 2013 to October 2014,Farah said. For the next year, the company is shooting for revenue of $500,000, and $1 million the year after that.

Farah initially funded the company himself with funds raised through exiting previous startups. (Before starting Rustic Grain, he created an online boat marketplace called BurlingtonBoatyard.com as well as Muddler LLC, which provides consumer insights for the beverage industry.) But Rustic Grain is already running off cash flows, Farah said.”

"If you pick them right, it’s almost endless. Anything we can salvage, we take."

St. Louis Business Journal: Rustic Grain is turning old barns into bars, tables — and growth

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