On Sunday, May 17, at around 3:30 in the morning, a devastating fire broke out at our headquarters in Conshohocken, Pennsylvania. Firefighters bravely battled the blaze for hours, but our warehouse and offices were completely destroyed.

We are extremely fortunate that no one from our team, nor anyone from neighboring residences and businesses, was injured.​

Nonetheless, this has been a devastating loss for us. Our entire inventory of products, encompassing over 10,000 SKUs, burned to the ground. All of our equipment––including trucks, computers, forklifts, and internet servers––has been reduced to rubble and twisted metal.

Following intense deliberation Sunday night, we decided to rebuild the business from the ground up––a process that’s not all that unfamiliar to us.

We started Philly Floor in 1992 in a small row house in Darby, Pennsylvania. We were four siblings bound together by a common dream to build something of our own. We worked the phones and repaired flooring equipment during the day. At night, we made deliveries in a used ambulance with a heating system that refused to turn off.

From those humble beginnings, we built a name for ourselves in the flooring industry. We constructed a strong vendor network, expanded our inventory well beyond its original scope, and started delivering goods to all 50 states. We went from a row home, a team of four, and an old ambulance to a warehouse in Conshohocken with over 25 employees and a fleet of 18-wheelers.

Scenes from the Philly Floor Store’s “war room.”

It is extremely difficult to start over after such a massive loss. But we still have our people––and that fact alone is more important than anything else.

We have an excellent team and a supportive network. We also have enormous faith in our ability to rebound from this tragedy to become bigger, better, and stronger than ever––like a phoenix rising from the ashes.

Since the fire, key members of the PFS team have been hard at work in a temporary “war room” to help rebuild our life’s work of 22 years.

The search for a new site is already underway, as is an investigation into the cause of the fire. We will be back in business soon.

We thank you for your continued support as we rebuild the Philadelphia Floor Store. Stay tuned for updates right here on our blog, and on our Twitter and Facebook.

Sincerely,
The Glavin Family
Mike, Maurice, Mary, & Joe