by After expansions into the Northeast and West, the retailer’s goal is $500 million in sales by 2030
CHARLOTTE, N.C. — Manny Rodrigues, president and chief operating officer of Broad River Retail, has big plans for the Fort Mill, South Carolina-based company. And to help the retailer deliver on its goal, Rodrigues also has a word of the year. In 2025, it was pioneer.
According to Rodrigues, the word “pioneer” represented the company’s expansion into the West.
“What started off as a regional retail company here in the Southeast and the Carolinas and Georgia is now expanding to the Northwest with our first store in Spokane, Washington,” Rodrigues said. “Not just any store, over 100,000 square feet, three stories and a sleep shop with 88 mattresses. We are pioneering our way to do something really bold.”
In April, Broad River Retail will open a store in Moscow, Idaho, followed by another in Portland, Maine, in May. The Portland store also marks the retailer’s foray into the Northeast market. “Announcing Portland, Maine, to our company was pretty exciting because the way we’re looking at things is we’re going from a regional player to a nationwide player,” Rodrigues said.
At the end of 2025, Broad River Retail won Ashley Furniture’s Licensee of the Year for the second consecutive year, and one of its stores, in Albemarle, North Carolina, won Store of the Year (under $5 million in revenue) and tied for Store of the Year Overall. Despite the smaller size of the Albemarle, North Carolina, store, Rodrigues credits the team’s performance for its success.
Rodrigues said that the company also has “several other” stores under production, although they have yet to be announced. For 2026, Broad River Retail aims to achieve $300 million in revenue by year end. To help guide it, leadership has chosen a new word of the year: forge.
‘We have set a path,” Rodrigues said. “The path is to get to $500 million by the end of 2030. What’s it gonna take? It’s going to take us coming together, not just in the Southeast, but in the Northwest and the Northeast. And so we’re going to have to forge, meld our process, our cultures, how we show up in the marketplace,” Rodrigues said.
Rodrigues credits Broad River Retail’s ongoing success to its sense of community.
In 2025, the retailer achieved its sales goal of $272 million, and as a result, its Pioneer Prosperity Profit Sharing Program paid out a record $1.6 million dollars in profit sharing.
“We want to pay out even more in 2026,” Rodrigues said. “And we’ll be excited to do that, because it’s the right thing to do, but it also shows that we’ve all come together. We’ve all forged together to hit these goals. So forge is the word of the year for 2026.”
Taking care of its employees, which the company refers to as “memory makers” (a nod to its purpose statement, “furnishing life’s best memories”), is a priority for Broad River Retail. Last year, Rodrigues and his business partner, Charlie Malouf, chief executive officer of Broad River Retail, also seeded The Lighthouse Fund, the company’s employee crisis fund. “In the darkest of times, the goal there is that you have a place to turn to,” Rodrigues said of the fund, which is designed to help those in need with unexpected crises.
Rodrigues said the goal is “aggressive,” but when viewed with the rule of 72, invented by Italian mathematician Luca Pacioli, it breaks down to approximately 12% growth year over year.
“If you look at our performance history, we’ve demonstrated that,” Rodrigues said. “As a nationwide retailer, you’ve got to have a compelling vision. And so that’s our next five years. That’s what we’re focused on, our growth.”
How does Broad River Retail plan on growing? “It’s culture; it’s our people,” Rodrigues said. “It’s always the main ingredient, because as much as I love selling furniture and being in the furniture and sleep business, the best part of it is that we get to do it with people.”
One of the biggest hits for Broad River Retail recently has been the motion category. “It’s not the motion of yesteryear. It really blends into lifestyles, which is kind of what you’re looking for.” Rodrigues says the company also continues to see “some amazing things happening in the sleep category,” particularly through its acquisition of Resident Home in 2024, the former parent company and owner of the Nectar mattress brand.
“I like to say that retail is a team sport,” Rodrigues said. “It’s having the right team; it’s having the right culture and bringing folks on that are additive to what we’re trying to do. The moment you kind of shift from that, you start to kind of lose some of that momentum.”
Rodrigues said he feels “very confident” in his team to finish the year strong.
“We’re planting seeds for trees of whose shade we’re never gonna get to enjoy,” Rodrigues said. “But that’s OK because we are also benefactors. We’ve also benefited from folks who have come before us.” Rodrigues credits Ashley Furniture founder and Chairman Ron Wanek and President and CEO Todd Wanek and the effort, energy and capital they put into the infrastructure of the company.
“We’re a direct benefit of that,” Rodrigues said.
