In August of 2012, Pampa Home and Sleep Store first opened their doors to Pampa, offering customers from all around the Texas Panhandle and afar a wide variety of furniture and mattresses, sealed with a hometown hospitality guarantee.
Michael Anderson and his wife, Devney, worked in a furniture store in a small California town for 20 plus years, so they’re no stranger to the furniture business.
But it was Devney’s deep Pampa roots that brought them back to the Lone Star State.
Her family had lived in Pampa since the 1930s and her grandfather owned and operated Miller’s Jewelers, specializing in watch repair and maintenance on the bricks in downtown Pampa for more than 40 years, a business that is still well-remembered among long-time Pampa natives.
Upon moving to Pampa, the Andersons had the vision of opening their own furniture store, preferrably in the downtown area.
“Being in small towns, you learn that the heart and soul of any small town is the downtown,” Michael said.
“When we moved here, it was my heart’s desire to be downtown. We moved here solely because we felt like the Lord wanted us to be here. We never saw Pampa as a business opportunity or that it was lacking anything. It’s where my wife’s family has always been. When I first came to visit, I felt an unbelievable tug on my heart and so we came back and we wanted to give to the community.”
While the Andersons knew exactly where they wanted to be, they instead opened their business in Las Pampas Square, now the current location of Get Gussied Up.
They would operate in that location for a little over nine years, waiting for the right time to go where their heart had been calling them.
In the meantime, they would go on to build a strong customer base and positive reputation as being one of the Texas Panhandle’s best hometown furniture stores.
Before Pampa Home and Sleep Store would finally move to their current location downtown, the building had served as the Salvation Army headquarters for Pampa and then later a Cross Fit Gym with some renovations done along the way.
Once the Andersons bought the perfectly positioned corner building, the idea of giving the historic downtown a modern touch was a task that the Andersons, particularly Devney, was up for.
“When you look at the building, it’s updated but it doesn’t look like it’s out of place. The outside of the building and the font was all my wife. She was very adamant that we needed to pay homage to the heritage of downtown and the historic greatness of what it is,” Michael said.
“She has great memories of walking down these streets as a little girl when it was always busy and all the parking spots full. She told me stories of her Nana having to circle for blocks trying to find a spot in front of the dress shop she wanted to go to.”
Since being in the beloved location, Michael’s apsirations for downtown Pampa has grown and is currently thinking of ways to pull greater attention to travelers coming through.
A couple of years ago, he bought the old Capri Theatre on the corner of Francis and Cuyler, refurbishing the wornout sign and filling it in with ‘Pampa’ in the vintage style font used for his business that compliments the history well and has had lights installed to illuminate the sign.
Along the side of that building, he has a vision of a mural painted along the walls that depicts the hustle and bustle of the old theatre during its operation, instilling a sense of nostalgia for those who may remember and those who would have loved to had seen it.
“My hopes and prayers are that it will always stay looking like a theatre so it is accurate for its placement downtown and we will keep it beautiful and maintained as it has been since we got it,” Michael said.
He also started the Pampa Cars and Coffee event held the first Saturday of every month since moving downtown, inspiration drawn from the Burnin’ of the Bricks event that is held every year during the summer.
But Michael wanted something that was more year-round and folks from the surrounding towns make their way to Pampa every month to gather with fellow gear-heads and talk cars and sip coffee.
While every downtown business is just a hop, skip and jump away from each other, the support among them all can’t be beat and everyone is eager to welcome any new business that comes in and helps in any way they can.
“The great thing that I love about downtown Pampa and the Pampa merchants is there’s a sense of we’re all pulling for each other. But it’s not that we’re just pulling for downtown, we’re pulling for Pampa as a whole.”
As a service to the community they love, Pampa Home and Sleep Store has donated countless pieces of furniture to the Tralee Crisis Center, and as of recent, they have donated truckloads of furniture to families and individuals in Canadian who were affected by the wildfires that devastated the Texas Panhandle in February.
While the store typically delivers to the northern and eastern Oklahoma border and through to Memphis and Canyon, TX, any customer who has their eyes set on a certain piece that lives farther away, Michael and his staff have no problem delivering to the destination, free of charge, free installation and free disposal.
Visit Pampa Home and Sleep Store at 200 N. Cuyler in the heart of downtown Pampa, Monday through Friday from 9 AM to 6 PM and Saturday from 9 AM to 5 PM.
