Now, Houston has another player in the copper pots and pans, national chain, game. It's Seattle-based Sur La Table. If you didn't get your invitation, I'm sure it was lost in the mail. Since then, the Behnkes have opened 12 more stores, primarily in California. They have one store in Dallas and will open another within weeks in Plano.
More stores are in the works in Austin, in Fort Worth, two in Arizona and one in Chicago.
Renee Behnke, the chief operating officer, was in Houston for the opening. It's here because enough Houstonians were catalog customers that the company felt this city was a good bet. Thousands of products Table's store layout aims at that customer niche with shelves full of everything from expensive pots to kitchen gadgets. In all, it houses more than 12,500 products from 600 vendors. When I was in the store last week as it was being stocked, the staff was using photographs from the chain's stores to show them what goes where.