Issue link: https://www.e-digitaleditions.com/i/751848
16 FEDA News & Views spacious of the two but the four-level layout is choppy, which forced the deal- ership to merchandise its inventory on multiple fl oors. "We had our used equip- ment in the warehouse, our clearance items were boxed in another area, and the customer did not get the Burkett experience when they walked through the doors," says Burkett, who sold the building to U-Haul's parent company, Amerco, for $2.2 million. "The big difference between the two is the single-fl oor layout," he says of the 95,000-square-foot facility. "It's just one big box. There's one box for the ship- ping/receiving department, one box for the distribution center and one box for the showroom. So even though the over- all space is smaller, the new layout has allowed us to gain capacity." Going small also has led to effi ciencies across the board, a step that the leader- ship sees as a prerequisite for the next phase of Burkett Restaurant Equipment & Supplies' growth. Burkett likes to refer to the new headquarters as Burkett 2.0. Always cognizant of the weight of a sin- gle word and the power it can yield, he pauses before explaining, "It's a refl ec- tion of who Burkett has become and where we're going. We're evolving from a small local distributor to a national distributor that embodies the customer- fi rst experience. We're building the next phase of Burkett and looking down the road toward 10 years plus." continued on page 18