By James Wells
PERTH, WA: Rick Hart has opened the doors to Kitchen Headquarters, his new retail venture in Perth, just months after leaving the Clive Peeters business which has since gone into receivership.
“The doors are open and we are ready to trade. We are probably about six to eight months off being fully completed, but we decided to get it as near to perfection as possible and get trading. We are definitely up and running,” Hart told Current.com.au.
“We haven’t started advertising yet, but we will be looking into a marketing program over the next week or so, then everyone will know we’re about.”
Hart has recently announced that Miele, Neff and Gaggenau have joined the Kitchen Headquarters business with fitouts and installations due from these brands in coming weeks.
“Realistically we won’t have all of the brands in until mid-August, and then we can have our grand launch. We are pretty much sorted out now. There are more brands wanting to come in than we have space.”
When asked about the purchase of the Rick Hart stores that he started which have been sold to Harvey Norman as part of the $55 million purchase announced last week, Hart was reflective.
“There are definitely mixed emotions there. I think [the Harvey Norman purchase] was the only opportunity and I guess at least the brand lives on.”
Hart confirmed that he did not make a bid to purchase the Rick Hart name from the Clive Peeters receivers.
“No I didn’t [make a bid]. I just sat back to see what happened. It didn’t interest me to be in there looking at the whole operation – but maybe a smaller section. I’ll leave it up to them.”